U.S. stiffens sanctions against judge at center of U.S.-Brazil feud

RIO DE JANEIRO – The Trump administration announced new sanctions Wednesday against a Supreme Court justice in Brazil, dramatically escalating its feud with the Brazilian government over the prosecution of former president Jair Bolsonaro for his alleged role in a violent coup plot in 2022.

In targeting Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing the case against Bolsonaro and will be on the panel that presides over his trial, the U.S. Treasury Department invoked the Magnitsky Act, which empowers the American government to impose sanctions on foreign nationals accused of corruption and human rights violations.

Those sanctioned under the 2012 law, which is named for a slain Russian dissident, are prohibited from holding property in the United States and doing business with Americans.

“De Moraes is responsible for an oppressive campaign of censorship, arbitrary detentions that violate human rights, and politicized prosecutions – including against former President Jair Bolsonaro,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “Today’s action makes clear that Treasury will continue to hold accountable those who threaten U.S. interests and the freedoms of our citizens.”

Moraes did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The sanctions against the Brazilian judge, which U.S. officials have considered for months at the urging of Bolsonaro’s son, deepened the fallout between the Western Hemisphere’s two most populous countries – longtime allies whose relationship has suddenly and spectacularly devolved into outright hostility.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing a 50% tariff on all Brazilian goods, following through on a threat made earlier this month. The tariffs had been due to go into effect on Friday. His Brazilian counterpart, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has vowed to respond in equal measure.

On July 18, Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked U.S. travel visas belonging to Moraes and seven other justices on the Brazilian Supreme Court, “as well as their immediate family members.”

At the heart of the diplomatic dispute is Brazil’s prosecution of Bolsonaro, a longtime Trump ally who is set to face trial later this year on charges that he plotted to assassinate his political rivals and retain power through military force after losing the 2022 election to Lula. The countries are also at odds over Brazil’s aggressive campaign against online misinformation and those who platform and disseminate it.

Moraes is at the center of both feuds. He is overseeing the case against Bolsonaro and is also the director of the government’s campaign against “fake news,” which has brought him into conflict with U.S. social media companies, Trump and his supporters.

The magistrate has given no indication that he plans to back off his prosecutions, and Lula has said Brazil will not take orders from a foreign power.

It remained unclear what impact, if any, the sanctions would have on Moraes, a jurist from a middle-class Brazilian family who has few ties to the United States and does not speak English. A person close to him, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the judge’s private affairs, said Moraes doesn’t have a U.S. visa or any American assets or bank accounts.

Legal analysts have expressed surprise at the use of the Magnitsky Act, which was initially passed to target individuals in Russia, but has since been used against officials in numerous countries around the world.

Applying the act to a supreme court justice of another country leading legal investigations into alleged wrongdoing would appear to constitute a significant expansion of the law, Alex Prezanti, a partner at Global Diligence, an international law firm, said earlier this month.

He said the original law defined “in a very narrow way” who could be sanctioned, namely foreign nationals “responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights,” as well as government officials responsible for “acts of significant corruption.”

In 2017, during his first term, Trump signed an executive order that appeared to broaden the definition of who could be penalized under the Magnitsky Act to include those “responsible” or complicit in a “serious human rights abuse.”

Though human rights abuse is not defined in the order, Prezanti said, “it was understood to mean things like extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and detentions and possibly flagrant denials of political rights, such as freedom of speech. But it’s never been tested.”

The Treasury Department’s announcement Wednesday specifically referenced Trump’s 2017 executive order as the legal justification for taking action against Moraes, saying he has “investigated, prosecuted, and suppressed those who have engaged in speech that is protected under the U.S. Constitution, repeatedly subjecting victims to long preventive detentions without bringing charges.”

In a statement posted to social media, Rubio applauded the sanctions.

“Let this be warning to those who would trample on the fundamental rights of their countrymen – judicial robes cannot protect you,” he said.

In Brazil, Moraes’ colleagues rushed to his defense. “He’s simply doing his job, in a way that is just and honest, in accordance with the Brazilian constitution,” Supreme Court Justice Flávio Dino said in a post on social media.

One longtime friend of Moraes, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their private conversations, said the allegations by the U.S. government were unlikely to deter the jurist from prosecuting what he considers to be violations of Brazilian law.

“He said he can’t give in because to give in would be to sacrifice the country’s sovereignty,” the friend said. “We never imagined it would get to this point, but he’ll face this down.”

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Dias reported from Brasília.