President Donald Trump
was—predictably—dismayed by the news that Brazil’s former right-wing president,
Jair Bolsonaro, had been sentenced to 27 years in prison.
“President Bolsonaro was
just found guilty by the Supreme Court [of Brazil]. You’ve been very clear that
you would apply further sanctions to Brazil because of Bolsonaro,” a reporter
said to Trump on Thursday.
Trump on Bolsonaro: It’s very much like they tried to do with me but they didn’t get away with it pic.twitter.com/6fIa4ceZKK
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 11, 2025
“Well, I watched that
trial, I know him pretty well. Hard leader … I thought he was a good president
of Brazil. And it’s very surprising that that could happen. That’s very much
like they tried to do with me, but they couldn’t get away with it, at all,” the
president replied. “But uh, I can only say this: I knew him as president of
Brazil, he was a good man. And I don’t see that happening.”
Trump and Bolsonaro share a long-running fondness for authoritarianism
that transcends borders, and has led them to become true allies over the years.
On Thursday, Brazil’s
Supreme Court sentenced the former leader to 27 years in prison for
plotting a coup in 2023, or what some see as an attempt to recreate January
6 in Brazil. Bolsonaro had his supporters raid Brazil’s presidential palace, the Supreme Court, and Congress, all because he’d rather see chaos than admit he
lost the election to leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The coup attempt caused “damage of an Amazonian scale.” Bolsonaro also
planned to have multiple leaders arrested or assassinated.
The former Brazilian
leader’s actions and conviction only endeared him to Trump. In July, the
president posted one of his many tariff letters on Truth Social, this one addressed to Brazil.
He ordered them to end their “witch hunt” of Bolsonaro “IMMEDIATELY” or
be hit with 50 percent tariffs.
Secretary of State Marco
Rubio also chimed in disapprovingly.
“The political
persecutions by sanctioned human rights abuser Alexandre de Moraes continue, as
he and others on Brazil’s supreme court have unjustly ruled to imprison former
President Jair Bolsonaro,” Rubio wrote Thursday on X. “The United States will respond
accordingly to this witch hunt.”
While Brazil’s left is
wary of continued, U.S.-backed attempts from Bolsonaro’s party and supporters to
free him, they see the conviction as repudiation of authoritarianism
rather than a political persecution.
“Today, Brazil is making
history,” Lindbergh Farias, who heads Lula’s Workers’ Party in the lower house
of Brazil’s Congress, said, after Bolsonaro’s sentencing. “Brazil is
saying: ‘Coups are a crime!’”
The post Trump Praises Jair Bolsonaro After He’s Convicted for Plotting a Coup appeared first on New Republic.
