The Economist criticizes US sanctions to Moraes and sees “shot in the foot”

In an editorial published on Thursday (31), the British publication states that the decision of the Donald Trump government may represent a “foot shot” and points out that the use of Global Magnitsky law to punish the Brazilian magistrate is not parallel in recent US diplomacy with democracies.

“Having a judge in office of a functional democratic country is unprecedented,” says the text.

The sanctions were formalized on the same day that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio published a message threatening Alexandre de Moraes. “May this be acknowledged to those who trampled the fundamental rights of their compatriots,” he said.

The measure freezes Moraes goods in US financial institutions and prohibits its entry into the United States.

The magazine points out that this legislation has been used to punish “genocidal generals of Myanmar and Russian authorities involved in the murder of political dissidents”, which, according to the editorial, does not apply at all for the case of Moraes.

The editorial recalls that, shortly after the announcement of the sanctions, Donald Trump signed a decree imposing 50% rates on various Brazilian imports, scheduled to start August 6.

In the text of the decree, the former president cites “motivated political persecution, intimidation, harassment, censorship and processes” against Bolsonaro, but makes no mention of commercial imbalances-argument usually used in tariff measures. “Perhaps because Brazil keeps a deficit with the United States,” says the magazine.

For the publication, the measures opened the political use of US foreign policy under Trump, whose central motivation would be to protect his ideological ally, Jair Bolsonaro.

A Economist He sees with concern that Rubio, Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are trying to use “the US state machine to press the Brazilian justice” to abandon the lawsuit against the former president.

Publication details the facts that underlie Bolsonaro’s trial

In counteracting the thesis of political persecution, the editorial recalls that the facts that underlie Bolsonaro’s trial are public and documented.

“Those who criticize Moraes’s performance against Bolsonaro seem to ignore the evidence gathered in the process,” he says. The magazine cites the attack on the headquarters of the three powers on January 8, 2023 in response to false allegations of electoral fraud disseminated by Bolsonaro, and highlights the attempt by the far right of rewriting the episode.

A Economist Failure to states by Bolsonarist Senator Rogério Marinho, who described the episode as “made by ladies, with Bibles, with flowers, with flags, elderly, children, without tanks, without leaders, on a Sunday.”

“A simple search shows that the episode was an orgy of vandalism,” the magazine disputes.

The editorial also points out that, on December 12, 2022, Lula’s victory certification day, Bolsonaro supporters burned vehicles in Brasilia. On Christmas Eve, a man tried to blow up a tank truck at the capital’s airport.

According to the Federal Police, the then Bolsonaro office deputy chief, Mario Fernandes, prepared a plan to assassinate Moraes, Lula and the vice president before the inauguration. The plan detailed weapons, grenades and even chemical agents to kill Lula in the hospital.

Fernandes admitted to being the author of the document, but claimed that this was a “risk analysis exercise”.

In the final stretch of the editorial, the magazine warns that Trump’s strategy may have the opposite effect to the desired. “Its unprecedented use of the magnitsky law can go out by the culathere,” he says.

The publication notes that Lula has taken advantage of the US climbing to frame Bolsonaro and his allies as “traitors”, a speech that finds support in the majority of the Brazilian population.

The magazine also points out that Moraes, the target of death threats since 2019, is not intimidated. “On the day the sanctions were announced, he flew to Sao Paulo to watch the game of his football team at the stadium,” says the text.