By Gabriela Sá Pessoa and Nicholas Riccardi
U.S. President Donald Trump has made clear who his new Latin America priority is: former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a personal and political ally.
In doing so, he has damaged one of the Western hemisphere’s most important and long-standing relationships, by levying 50% tariffs that begin to take effect Wednesday on the largest Latin America economy, sanctioning its main justice and bringing relations between the two countries to the lowest point in decades.
The White House has appeared to embrace a narrative pushed by Bolsonaro allies in the U.S., that the former Brazilian president’s prosecution for attempting to overturn his 2022 election loss is part of a “deliberate breakdown in the rule of law,” with the government engaging in “politically motivated intimidation” and committing “human rights abuses,” according to Trump’s statement announcing the tariffs.
The message was clear earlier, when Trump described Bolsonaro’s prosecution by Brazil’s Supreme Court as a “witch hunt” — using the same phrase he has employed for the numerous investigations he
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