The administration of President Donald Trump identified Brazil as a national security threat on Wednesday and imposed human rights sanctions on Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) Justice Alexandre de Moraes.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned de Moraes under the Global Magnitsky Act over a consistent pattern of persecuting conservative political activity, including arbitrary detentions, denial of fair trial guarantees, censorship, punishing free speech, and other serious human right abuses.
As per the terms of the Global Magnitsky Act, all of de Moraes’ U.S.-based assets are frozen and all transactions between the Justice and U.S. persons involving any of his property or interests are strictly prohibited.
“Alexandre de Moraes has taken it upon himself to be judge and jury in an unlawful witch hunt against U.S. and Brazilian citizens and companies,” Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said. “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. 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 abused his authority by engaging in a targeted and politically motivated effort designed to silence political critics through the issuance of secret orders compelling online platforms, including U.S. social media companies, to ban the accounts of individuals for posting protected speech,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained in a separate statement. “Moraes further abused his position to authorize unjust pre-trial detentions and undermine freedom of expression.”
Alexandre de Moraes, a self-declared “anti-fake news crusader,” is one of the most prominent members of Brazil’s STF, joining the top court in 2017. In the past decade, the controversial justice has led efforts against alleged “fake news circulators” and “anti-democratic digital militias” for allegedly spreading “fake news and threaten[ing] democracy.” De Moraes launched a widespread persecution campaign against conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro, his family, other conservative politicians, and citizens supportive of Bolsonaro. De Moraes also repeatedly signed off on censorship orders against American social media platforms, imposing hefty daily non-compliance fines.
Some of the actions approved by de Moraes against those targeted also included freezing bank assets, travel bans, police raids, and arrests.
President Donald Trump cited numerous judicial abuses committed by de Moraes and the Justice’s persecution of Bolsonaro in an executive order addressing the national threat to the United States posed by the government of Brazil while imposing a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian goods entering the United States, which will go into effect on Friday, August 1.
“Recent policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Brazil threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” Trump wrote in the order. The president described this threat as a “national emergency” for America.
President Trump continued:
These judicial actions, taken under the pretext of combatting “disinformation,” “fake news,” or “anti-democratic” or “hateful” content, endanger the economy of the United States by tyrannically and arbitrarily coercing United States companies to censor political speech, turn over sensitive United States user data, or change their content moderation policies on pain of extraordinary fines, criminal prosecution, asset freezes, or complete exclusion from the Brazilian market. These actions also chill and limit expression in the United States, violate human rights, and undermine the interest that the United States has in protecting its citizens and companies at home and abroad.
President Trump explained this month that the “witchhunt” against Bolsonaro and the STF’s attacks on free elections in Brazil were the reasons for the imposition of the upcoming tariffs on Brazil. The U.S. sanctions against de Moraes come days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio cited the same reasons to impose U.S. visa restrictions on de Moraes and Brazilian officials allied with the controversial justice.
The STF released a brief statement on Wednesday evening expressing solidarity with de Moraes and claiming that all decisions made by de Moraes against Bolsonaro cited by the U.S. were “confirmed by the competent Collegiate Body.” The top court asserted that it “will not deviate from complying with the Constitution.”
While Alexandre de Moraes has not publicly commented on the U.S. sanctions at press time, CNN Brasil reported on Wednesday that the justice is preparing a response speech to President Trump that he will deliver on Friday, August 1, when the top court resumes its work.
Radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expressed his solidarity with de Moraes in a statement rejecting the unacceptable “interference” of the U.S. government in Brazil’s judicial system. Lula said that any attempt to weaken the Brazilian judiciary constitutes a threat to the democratic regime itself. He appeared to justify de Moraes’ censorship rulings by asserting that “in Brazil, the law applies to all citizens and all companies. Any activity that affects the lives of the Brazilian people and democracy is subject to regulations. This is no different for digital platforms.”
Lula’s 2022 presidential campaign directly benefited from de Moraes’ censorship actions. At the time, de Moraes forbade Bolsonaro’s campaign from referring to Lula as a “thief” and “corrupt” in reference to Lula’s multiple corruption convictions. De Moraes did not similarly censor Lula’s spurious claims that Bolsonaro was a “cannibal” and a “pedophile.” Lula narrowly defeated Bolsonaro in the 2022 presidential election.
The Brazilian president continued in his comments on Wednesday by asserting that his government considers the reasons espoused by the U.S. government for the upcoming tariffs “unjustifiable.” He stressed that Brazil remains willing to negotiate the commercial aspects of its relationship with the United States “but will not relinquish the instruments of defense provided for in its legislation.”
“Our economy is increasingly integrated with major international markets and partners,” Lula said. “We have already begun to assess the impact of the measures and to develop actions to support and protect Brazilian workers, companies, and families.”
The Brazilian newspaper Estadão reported on Wednesday night that de Moraes was attending a local soccer match with his wife when the U.S. announced its sanctions. During the match, the newspaper explained, the justice smiled, waved, and raised his middle finger to the crowd.
“Then you see the presence of the Minister [Justice] of the Federal Supreme Court, Alexandre de Moraes, who is involved in all this talk, this dispute with the U.S. government. But that’s politics. He’s there as a fan. He has every right to be there as a fan,” Brazilian commentator Galvão Bueno reportedly said during the soccer match’s broadcast.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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