Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Image: Isac Nóbrega/PR.
(The Post News)– Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has dismissed US objections to Jair Bolsonaro’s conviction on coup-related charges and criticized American tariffs on Brazilian products, calling them “misguided” and “illogical.”
This comes after The New York Times published an op-ed on Sunday. Bolsonaro, 70, made his first public appearance since last week’s conviction for a hospital visit. Chile’s President Gabriel Boric Font was among the first regional leaders to applaud the sentence handed to Bolsonaro.
Lula said he aimed to have an open and candid discussion with US President Donald Trump regarding the administration’s 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian exports, including coffee and beef, following Bolsonaro’s trial. He noted that the US has a trade surplus with Brazil, accumulating a surplus of $410bn in trade over the past 15 years, making it “clear that the motivation of the White House is political.”
Lula argues that tariffs were directed to Bolsonaro.
According to Lula, the tariffs were aimed at seeking impunity for Bolsonaro, whom he said orchestrated the riots in Brasilia on 8 January 2023, when the former leader’s supporters stormed the presidential palace, the Supreme Court, and the Congress in protest over his election defeat the previous year. The events in the Brazilian capital echoed the storming of the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters on 6 January 2021, after he insisted for months, without evidence, that there had been widespread fraud during the election he lost to his Democratic rival, Joe Biden.
Lula called Bolsonaro’s actions “an attempt to overturn the people’s choice at the ballot box” and praised the Brazilian Supreme Court’s “historic decision” Thursday, which sentenced the former president to 27 years and three months in prison. “This was not a ‘witch hunt’; the judgment was the result of proceedings carried out in accordance with Brazil’s 1988 Constitution, enacted after two decades of struggle against a military dictatorship. It followed months of investigations that uncovered plans to assassinate me, the vice president, and a Supreme Court justice. Authorities also discovered a draft decree that would have effectively annulled the 2022 election results,” he said.
Lula added that Bolsonaro’s conviction safeguards Brazil’s institutions and the democratic rule of law.
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