Eduardo Bolsonaro (Liberal Party), a licensed Brazilian federal deputy who considers himself “self-exiled” since he went to the United States in February this year, may have shot himself and the Brazilian far right in the foot by being one of the articulators of the recently imposed 50% tariff on Brazilian products announced by U.S. President Donald Trump. That’s the analysis by philosopher José Antônio Moroni and political scientists Mayra Goulart and Carolina Botelho, who Brasil de Fato interviewed.
Last Wednesday (9), Trump announced that tariffs on Brazilian products exported to the U.S. would come into effect on August 1st. The U.S. president justified the measure as a reaction to what he considers political persecution and an “international disgrace” by Brazil’s Federal Supreme Court (STF, in Portuguese) against former president Jair Bolsonaro (Liberal Party).
Jair’s “son n. 03”, in a letter written with Paulo Figueiredo – a right-wing influencer, defendant in the criminal proceedings of the coup attempt and son of former military dictator João Figueiredo – thanked Donald Trump.
“We call on the Brazilian authorities to avoid escalating the conflict and adopt an institutional solution,” Eduardo Bolsonaro said on social media. For him, the way out includes approving an amnesty for those involved in the attempted coup d’état in Brazil, “a new legislation that guarantees freedom of expression – especially online – and the accountability of public officials who abuse power”. Without this, he threatens, “the situation tends to get worse.”
“President Trump correctly understood that [Supreme Court Justice] Alexandre de Moraes can only act when backed by a political, business and institutional establishment that agrees with his authoritarian escalation. The American president understood that this establishment must also bear the cost of this adventure,” said Eduardo Bolsonaro, dubbing the tax the “Moraes tariff”.
For Moroni, a member of the Institute for Social and Economic Studies, Bolsonaro’s attempt to attribute the sanction, which affects Brazil’s broad economic sectors, to a punishment strictly for Alexandre de Moraes does not hold water.
“They haven’t managed to present it as an attack on the Supreme Court or President Lula. The Bolsonaro family and their supporters are attacking Brazil from another country, the most powerful in the world. This will be very bad for them,” says José Antônio Moroni.
Family interests above national interests
“What they did in 2018 [during the presidential elections] no longer sticks. They don’t have much to show for their four years ruling the country, so they need a narrative. Therefore, I see this as a strategy,” says Moroni, who is also a member of the Platform of Social Movements for Another Political System.
“But this thing about applauding and defending tariffs or foreign interference against Brazil is a very dangerous discourse: It turns against them. Apart from this small, radical base of supporters they have, no one is supporting it,“ says Moroni, for whom the situation makes clear that the Bolsonaro family “puts their own interests above national interests.”
If Trump backs down on the tariff, the philosopher adds, “they’ll make it sound as if Bolsonaro had interfered, as if to say that he’s in charge, not Lula”.
Mayra Goulart, a political scientist at the Institute of Political and Social Studies at Rio de Janeiro State University (IESP/UERJ, in Portuguese), points out that the situation reveals the ambiguity of the global far right’s nationalist discourse.
“This nationalism has a social Darwinist component, that is, it believes that the strongest survive. And when this is applied to a peripheral nation, it contrasts with the embrace of hegemonic powers. So it seems that at the same time as there is a gain in this alliance with those who are admired countries, there is also a loss due to the threat posed by the nationalist rhetoric,” says Goulart.
In addition, political scientist Carolina Botelho, from the National Institute of Science and Technology in Social and Affective Neuroscience (INCT/SANI/CNPq), says the strategy could displease Brazilian economic sectors aligned with the right.
“This alignment with U.S. interests to the detriment of the Brazilian state has led to major opponents [of the Lula government] coming together to condemn the actions of Eduardo Bolsonaro and his family,” Botelho points out. “This political struggle is being waged in their favor and against Brazilian interests. So, the economic losses that this could generate are bringing together groups that have been political antagonists in recent years, and that hasn’t gone down well,” he says.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party) cited the Economic Reciprocity Law as a legal way to react to the tariffs. He declared that “Brazil is a sovereign country with independent institutions that won’t accept being tutored by anyone.”
Can Eduardo Bolsonaro’s term be revoked?
As a licensed federal deputy, Eduardo is acting with an attitude of “lese patria”, says Carolina Botelho. “He is in the United States using the capital granted to him by Brazilian society to attack his country on foreign soil and benefit from it, even at the price that we Brazilians have to pay,” she explains. “It’s an absurd misrepresentation of his role as a civil servant of the Brazilian state. And his conduct deserves the attention of the Chamber of Deputies and Brazil’s political, judicial and democratic institutions,” she argues.
Mayra Goulart believes that Eduardo Bolsonaro could be impeached. “Because Brazilian legal institutions have belatedly realized that Bolsonarism, which is on the extreme right spectrum, can be a threat to them, since, as guardians of the Constitution, due process, separation of powers and civil rights, the extreme right sees the Supreme Courts and the judicial system as an obstacle. This reaction makes them more active,” she argues.
Moroni, on the other hand, doesn’t believe that the Brazilian legislators will withdraw their mandate, “despite having every reason to do so.” “The Congress won’t remove Eduardo Bolsonaro, but may remove Glauber [Braga, from the Socialism and Liberty Party]. That’s the Brazilian Congress: The same one that won’t approve taxing the super-rich,” he explains.
Hours before Trump announced the new tax, federal deputies who support Bolsonaro approved a “motion of praise and rejoicing” for the U.S. president in the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“I don’t know exactly how strong Eduardo Bolsonaro’s influence on Trump’s decision is. I’d say he thinks he’s more relevant than he actually is,” Botelho said. “But Trump uses conspiracies and threats to Brazilian institutions which Eduardo himself builds on U.S. soil to enforce his U.S. economic and political agenda on Latin America,” he concludes.
