Will Trump cripple Brazil if Jair Bolsonaro is found guilty?

The trial of Brazil’s former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro on charges of plotting a coup to topple the current President Lula da Silva is entering its final stages.

Bolsonaro, 70, and seven co- defendants are accused of conspiring to oust Lula, the veteran left-winger who narrowly beat him in the 2022 Presidential election. The Supreme Court in Brasilia will consider its verdict this week. If – as expected – the court convicts Bolsonaro, the ailing ex-President is looking at a lengthy jail sentence, and may die in prison as a result. Bolsonaro has been in poor health since he was stabbed in the abdomen in an assassination attempt while campaigning during his successful bid for the presidency in 2018.

Such an outcome will not only dismay Bolsonaro and his many supporters in Brazil: it will also enrage US President Donald Trump, who has condemned the trial as a “witch hunt” against his ideological soulmate – and has threatened to impose punitive 50 percent tariffs against Lula’s Brazil in response.

Bolsonaro is already under house arrest at his Brasília home and is forced to wear an ankle tag. The sanctions were imposed by the court after the ex- President attempted to seek political asylum in right wing President Javier Milei’s Argentina.

The coup charges stem from a mass riot in January 2023 when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed federal government buildings calling for the military to take over and oust Lula. That riot reminded many observers of the January 2021 rampage in Washington when hundreds of Trump supporters swarmed into the Capitol building in an unsuccessful effort to prevent President Biden taking over from Trump. President Trump pardoned those protesters jailed for insurrection over the riot when he was re-elected for his second term.

Brazil is especially sensitive to talk of coups since the vast country – Latin America’s largest state by far – was ruled by a military dictatorship for 21 years between 1964 and 1985 after another elected left-wing President Joao “Jango” Goulart was deposed in a coup. Goulart died in exile in Argentina in 1976, officially of a heart attack, though many believe he was poisoned on the orders of the military junta.

Bolsonaro, himself a former Army captain, was an outspoken supporter of the military dictatorship. He still retains much support among conservative Brazilians, and recent polls show that around 40 percent of people believe he is being unjustly persecuted by Lula’s regime. His condemnation would risk more violence and disorder in the streets.

The legal authorities in Brazil have certainly given the former President no favours or granted him any allowances respecting his age and ill health. They have even forbidden Bolsonaro from contacting his son Edouardo, who is himself an aspiring right-wing politician.

The harsh treatment reflects the social divisions in Brazil generated during the former President’s controversial time in office.

If Bolsonaro is convicted and jailed as seems likely, and Trump follows through on his Tariff threats, it will put the US on a collision course with yet another Hispanic country, and this time with one that is the most powerful of them all.