In a growing political conflict between Brazil and Brazil, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has announced that another official has had his US visa voided.
Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski was recently removed from his visa, according to Lula’s cabinet on Tuesday, which the president described as “irresponsible” on the part of the US.
Lula told his ministers, “I wanted to express my solidarity and the government’s solidarity with my colleague Lewandowski, who was confronted with the irresponsible gesture of the United States in revoke his visa.”
Lula added that other nations would not tolerate treating Brazil as less than it is. He added that Brazil possessed its own constitution and legal system.
“We are willing to occupy the same table,” the statement read. We don’t want to be treated like subordinates, which is what we do. Lula said, “We will not tolerate that from anyone.”
Although Brazil and the US have long been trading partners, relations have gotten more strained since US President Donald Trump’s second term began.
Trump has a strong kinship with Brazilian far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, whose presidency and first term overlapped with Trump’s. Bolsonaro served from 2019 to 2023, while Trump was in office from 2017 to 2021.
However, after losing to Lula in the 2022 presidential election, Bolsonaro is facing a trial this year for allegedly conspiring with his allies to pull off a coup d’etat.
Bolsonaro has denied wrongdoing, but prosecutors allege he planned to use a number of strategies to stoke Lula’s government, including establishing a “state of siege,” bringing up the military, and holding new elections.
As the case’s verdict comes in early September, the former president is currently being placed under house arrest.
Trump’s opposition to the Bolsonaro trial
Trump has argued that the trial is a “witch hunt,” calling the Brazilian government’s decision to drop Bolsonaro’s case.
He praised Bolsonaro, who was dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics,” by posting a message on his social media platform Truth Social on July 7.
Trump remarked, “He is not guilty of anything other than fighting for THE PEOPLE.”
Then, two days later, Trump delivered the message in a letter to President Lula himself, informing him that Brazil would be subject to 50-percent tariffs on all of its US exports. Trump claimed that Brazil’s treatment of Bolsonaro was to blame for the high tariffs.
“The way that Brazil treated former president Bolsonaro, a highly respected leader throughout the world, including by the United States, is a disgrace,” Trump wrote in a statement.
“This trial shouldn’t be occurring,” he said. A witch hunt needs to end right away.
Brazil is now the world’s highest US tariff-affected nation as a result of those tariffs’ introduction on August 1. As a result of Russia’s imports of gasoline, India will start to be subject to 50-percent tariffs as well, starting on Wednesday.
The Trump administration has also imposed tariffs on Brazil to halt Bolsonaro’s trial, though this is just one example.
Alexandre de Moraes, a justice of the Supreme Court, was the US government’s spokesman when it allegedly censored right-wing voices.
For instance, Trump’s Department of State announced on July 18 that it would remove Moraes’ US visa and remove any members of his immediate family.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that the political witch hunt against Jair Bolsonaro by Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes “created a persecution and censorship complex so sweeping that it not only violates Brazilians’ fundamental rights but also targets Americans beyond Brazil’s borders.”
The US government increased the stakes by imposing financial sanctions on de Moraes on July 30.
They forbid de Moraes from doing business with the judge and restricted any US-based individual or entity from doing so.
Trump’s Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement at the time that “De Moraes is accountable for an oppressive campaign of censorship, arbitrary detentions that violate human rights, and politicized prosecutions, including against former president Jair Bolsonaro.
President Lula criticized the attacks on De Moraes, Lewandowski, and others as a violation of Brazil’s sovereignty at Tuesday’s cabinet meeting.
Source: Aljazeera
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