{"id":105938,"date":"2025-07-30T22:26:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T22:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/105938\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T22:26:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T22:26:10","slug":"us-treasury-sanctions-brazilian-judge-overseeing-bolsonaro-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/105938\/","title":{"rendered":"US Treasury sanctions Brazilian judge overseeing Bolsonaro case"},"content":{"rendered":"

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) \u2014 The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday announced sanctions on Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes<\/a> over alleged suppression of freedom of expression and the ongoing trial of former President Jair Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n

De Moraes oversees the criminal case against Bolsonaro, who is accused of masterminding a plot to stay in power<\/a> despite his 2022 election defeat to current President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva.<\/p>\n

\u201cDe Moraes is responsible for an oppressive campaign of censorship, arbitrary detentions that violate human rights, and politicized prosecutions \u2014 including against former President Jair Bolsonaro,\u201d U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The department cited the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which targets perpetrators of human rights abuse and corrupt officials, as its authority to issue the sanctions.<\/p>\n

The decision orders the freezing of any assets or property de Moraes may have in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court and the Presidential Palace did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s sanctions follow the U.S. State Department\u2019s announcement of visa restrictions on Brazilian judicial officials, including de Moraes, on July 18.<\/p>\n

They also come after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a 50% tariff on Brazilian imported goods<\/a> on July 9. In a letter announcing the tariff, Trump explicitly linked the import tax to what he called the \u201cwitch hunt\u201d trial of Bolsonaro currently underway in Brazil.<\/p>\n

Trump appears to identify with Bolsonaro, who is accused of trying to overturn the results of his 2022 loss to Lula. Similarly, Trump was indicted in 2023 on allegations that he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 U.S. presidential election.<\/p>\n

Bolsonaro has been ordered to wear an ankle monitor<\/a> after being deemed a flight risk.<\/p>\n

Bolsonaro\u2019s son Eduardo celebrated the U.S. Treasury Department announcement on X, calling it a \u201chistoric milestone\u201d and a warning that \u201cabuses of authority now have global consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eduardo Bolsonaro<\/a> relocated to the U.S. in March and is under investigation for allegedly working with U.S. authorities to impose sanctions against Brazilian officials.<\/p>\n

Also on Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order<\/a> to implement the 50% tariff announced earlier this month. The White House said in a statement that the order was a response to \u201crecent policies, practices, and actions\u201d of Brazil that \u201cconstitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

That was a shift in rationale for the tariff. The legal basis of the threat on July 9 was an earlier executive order premised on trade imbalances being a threat to the U.S. economy. But the U.S. ran a $6.8 billion trade surplus last year with Brazil, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.<\/p>\n

In Wednesday\u2019s order, Trump said Brazil\u2019s policies and criminal prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro<\/a> constitute an economic emergency under a 1977 law.<\/p>\n

After the tariff was announced earlier this month, Lula said that Trump wasn\u2019t elected to be \u201cemperor of the world.\u201d He has defended Brazil\u2019s sovereignty and the independence of Brazil\u2019s judiciary.<\/p>\n

Lula called an emergency meeting with some ministers following Wednesday\u2019s events, local newspaper O Globo reported.<\/p>\n

The left-wing president had earlier sanctioned a law banning the use of live animals in laboratory testing for personal hygiene products, cosmetics and perfumes, calling Wednesday a \u201csacred day of sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a video posted on social media, Lula said he left the event in capital Brasilia in a hurry to defend \u201cthe sovereignty of the Brazilian people in light of the measures announced by the President of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Originally due to come into effect on Aug 1, Wednesday\u2019s order said the tariffs would go into effect seven days after its signing.<\/p>\n

Flavia Loss, an international relations professor at Foundation School of Sociology and Politics in Sao Paulo, said the sanctions against Moraes and the tariffs order marked an escalation in the tensions between the U.S. and Brazil. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not talking about a normal commercial dispute between countries, we are talking about using commercial tools to coerce what happens in Brazil,\u201d Loss said. <\/p>\n

Human Rights Watch in Brazil said on X the sanctions \u201care a clear violation of judicial independence, a pillar of democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

____<\/p>\n

Follow AP\u2019s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/latin-america<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) \u2014 The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday announced sanctions on Brazilian Supreme Court Justice…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":105939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[68081,4214,19207,411,1613,356,69,12042,68082,90,57,86,39155,1612,362,4215,50,80,16816,18244,4217,369,4529,18246,67,132,68,93,107],"class_list":{"0":"post-105938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-alexandre-de-moraes","10":"tag-brazil","11":"tag-brazil-government","12":"tag-censorship","13":"tag-central-america","14":"tag-courts","15":"tag-donald-trump","16":"tag-economic-policy","17":"tag-eduardo-bolsonaro","18":"tag-elections","19":"tag-general-news","20":"tag-government-policy","21":"tag-jair-bolsonaro","22":"tag-latin-america","23":"tag-legal-proceedings","24":"tag-luiz-incio-lula-da-silva","25":"tag-news","26":"tag-politics","27":"tag-sanctions-and-embargoes","28":"tag-scott-bessent","29":"tag-south-america","30":"tag-supreme-court-of-the-united-states","31":"tag-u-s-department-of-state","32":"tag-u-s-department-of-the-treasury","33":"tag-united-states","34":"tag-unitedstates","35":"tag-us","36":"tag-washington-news","37":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}