{"id":89860,"date":"2025-08-15T03:55:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T03:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=89860"},"modified":"2025-08-15T03:55:00","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T03:55:00","slug":"bolsonaros-son-praises-trumps-tariff-hike-on-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=89860","title":{"rendered":"Bolsonaro\u2019s son praises Trump\u2019s tariff hike on Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>7 Minute, 54 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>
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The son of Brazil\u2019s former President Jair Bolsonaro has praised US President Donald Trump for imposing huge tariffs on his home country \u2013 and warned more measures could be on the way.<\/p>\n

Eduardo Bolsonaro \u2013 who is an elected Congressman in Brazil \u2013 spoke to the BBC in Washington, where he has been on a months-long lobbying campaign to convince the Trump administration to punish the Brazilian authorities for putting his father on trial on coup charges.<\/p>\n

The congressman said there could be more sanctions on individuals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a very significant possibility regarding the application of sanctions and the extension of Magnitsky sanctions to other people. You have on Secretary Marco Rubio\u2019s desk, for example, the possibility of withdrawing visas, among other pressure mechanisms, to try to get Brazil out of this institutional crisis we\u2019re experiencing.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the White House on Thursday, President Trump doubled down, accusing Brazil of being a bad trade partner. He wrongly claimed the US runs a trade deficit with Brazil. Last year, it ran a $7.4 billion trade surplus with Brazil<\/p>\n

He went on to defend Jair Bolsonaro:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a political execution that they\u2019re trying to do with Bolsonaro. I think that\u2019s terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former president is accused of plotting a coup to prevent the man who beat him in the 2022 presidential election, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, from taking office. Jair Bolsonaro has denied that he led an attempt to overthrow the government but acknowledged taking part in meetings aimed at reversing his election loss.<\/p>\n

A verdict in the case is expected in the coming weeks. If found guilty, Jair Bolsonaro could face decades in prison.<\/p>\n

Trump likened the case against Bolsonaro, who has been dubbed \u201cTrump of the Tropics\u201d for his similarities to the US president, to a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d and drew parallels with his own legal battles following his refusal to accept defeat in 2020. It has left the two largest democracies in the Americas in a huge confrontation.<\/p>\n

In July, Trump announced he would raise tariffs on Brazilian imports to 50%, citing Brazil\u2019s treatment of Jair Bolsonaro as a trigger for the hike.<\/p>\n

In addition to that, the US State Department banned eight Brazilian Supreme Court justices from travelling to the US, including Alexandre de Moraes, the judge overseeing Bolsonaro\u2019s trial.<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s President Lula said the move constituted an unacceptable interference in his country\u2019s justice system and refused to budge, so the 50%-levy came into effect last week.<\/p>\n

In an interview with the BBC in Washington, Eduardo Bolsonaro would not be drawn on the closeness of his relationship with President Trump or if he influenced the tariff action.<\/p>\n

\u201cI admire President Trump; we\u2019ve met several times in his first and second terms. We fought first to sanction Alexandre de Moraes. But if President Trump starts with tariffs, I do believe that he is right and I do support him because of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eduardo Bolsonaro, 41, has been in the US since March, saying he is living in \u201cexile\u201d out of fear of arrest should he return to Brazil.<\/p>\n

He rejects criticism that he is being unpatriotic by lobbying for sanctions which will see his country suffer economically: \u201cI believe freedom comes first, before the economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

When challenged, he cites a recent poll by the Quaest institute saying that one day after Trump announced the 50%-levy, \u201cfour in every 10 Brazilians were in support of the tariffs\u201d.<\/p>\n

We put it to him that the poll actually suggests that 79% of Brazilians believe the tariffs will harm their lives, and among voters who say they have no political position, 77% believe their imposition is wrong.<\/p>\n

So how worried is he that this could blow back on his family, and boost support for the current president, Lula?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not thinking about the next election, I\u2019m thinking about the next generation,\u201d he says before conceding that he knows it is something \u201cpeople are really concerned about, for sure\u201d.<\/p>\n

He often refers to Brazil as a dictatorship in his answers, even though major institutions like Freedom House cite the country as having free and fair elections.<\/p>\n

Eduardo Bolsonaro himself was one of the members of Congress to gain the most votes in 2022.<\/p>\n

He has also said that his father may stand again for president despite being barred from running for public office until 2030 under a ban which predates the coup charges that the older Bolsonaro is currently facing.<\/p>\n

Eduardo Bolsonaro\u2019s anger is very focused on Alexandre de Moraes, the judge who presided over the electoral court which issued the ban in 2023, and who is also overseeing the current trial on coup charges against Jair Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n

He is confident that \u201cin the next election \u2026 we will have new judges in the electoral court\u201d, which he thinks will mean that the restrictions preventing his father from running for office will be lifted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe new judges in the electoral court can do a better system. They can improve the system. And I hope this is going to happen,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

But he adds that for that to happen, \u201cyou need Alexandre de Moraes to be isolated\u201d.<\/p>\n

The BBC asked the Supreme Court and Mr Moraes for a response, but has not received a reply.<\/p>\n

Mr Moraes, meanwhile, has doubled down despite the US sanctions. He has placed Jair Bolsonaro under house arrest for breaching an order banning him from social media and ordered him to wear an electronic ankle tag.<\/p>\n

He has also ordered that the finances of Eduardo Bolsonaro be frozen on suspicion that he was using them to bankroll his lobbying on behalf of his father in the US.<\/p>\n

Son and father have also been banned from seeing each other, accused of trying to get the US to intervene to obstruct the case.<\/p>\n

Eduardo Bolsonaro argues that what he is doing in the US is shining a light on what he says are wrongdoings committed by \u201cdictators\u201d in his home country: \u201cThey think that is an anti-democratic act when you denounce the human rights violations of the abusers in Brazil.\u201d<\/p>\n

He goes on to compare himself to women from Iran who have been critical of their government and face persecution upon their return.<\/p>\n

While no arrest warrant has been issued for him, Eduardo Bolsonaro has repeatedly expressed fear he would be detained if he were to return to Brazil.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is going to happen to me if I go back to my country because I\u2019m denouncing these dictators? I\u2019m going to jail; it\u2019s pretty much the same situation. In Iran, they are a little bit more violent,\u201d he told the BBC.<\/p>\n

While he decries the current Brazilian government as a \u201cdictatorship\u201d, in 2019, when his father was in power, Eduardo Bolsonaro himself proposed passing a new Institutional Act Number 5 (AI-5), a decree passed under Brazil\u2019s military rule to suppress dissent.<\/p>\n

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

AI-5 closed down Brazil\u2019s Congress and indefinitely outlawed freedom of assembly and freedom of expression.<\/p>\n

Eduardo Bolsonaro said at the time that if protesters took to the streets against his father\u2019s administration, the government could adopt similar measures \u2013 thereby invoking one of the darkest moments in the country\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

He told the BBC he now regrets those remarks: \u201cIt was a mistake to say that. It was a mistake. I would not do that again.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also condemns the events of 8 January 2023, when hundreds of his father\u2019s supporters stormed the buildings in Brasilia that symbolise the country\u2019s democracy, a week after Lula had taken office.<\/p>\n

They vandalised the Supreme Court, Congress and the presidential palace and urged the military to take over.<\/p>\n

Jair Bolsonaro was in the United States when the storming in Brasilia happened, having left Brazil two days before his presidential term ended. He did not attend his successor\u2019s swearing-in and remained in Florida for months before returning to his home country in March 2023. He has always denied having incited his followers, and according to his son, he even denounced it.<\/p>\n

\u201cJanuary 8th was a protest that did go too far. I do agree, I do condemn it,\u201d he says, adding that \u201cmy father condemned it the very first day when it was happening\u201d.<\/p>\n

About 2,000 people were arrested over the Brasilia attack. Most were released but many were convicted by the Supreme Court on charges of an attempted coup, among other crimes, following ongoing police investigations. Eduardo Bolsonaro thinks the rioters should be granted an amnesty because, he says, the sentences are too long.<\/p>\n

But we put to him that plenty of people would argue that if you commit a crime to overturn democracy, you should be punished for it.<\/p>\n

He, in turn, argued that vandalising buildings did not amount to a coup attempt:<\/p>\n

\u201cEven with the heart angry because of the result of the elections, these people would never bring a dictatorship to Brazil. They would never accomplish a coup d\u2019etat\u201d<\/p>\n

He says he misses his home country but has no plans to return soon.<\/p>\n

Is this all just simple, pure revenge by an aggrieved son?<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure, he is my father, we have a relationship, but this is way bigger than only him. And if we do the right thing and rescue freedom in Brazil, everybody\u2019s going to receive the benefits, even him.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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