Brazil’s Supreme Court places Bolsonaro under house arrest

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro at Partido Liberal headquarters in Brasilia, Brazil, Jan. 14, 2025. The new measures ordered by Brazil’s Supreme Court threatened to escalate the biggest diplomatic crisis in decades between the United States and Brazil. (Victor Moriyama/The New York Times)

By Ana Ionova

Brazil’s Supreme Court ordered the house arrest of Jair Bolsonaro earlier this week, tightening the leash on the former president accused of overseeing a plot to cling to power after losing the 2022 election.

The new measures threatened to escalate the biggest diplomatic crisis in decades between the United States and Brazil, set off by President Donald Trump’s decision to defend Bolsonaro and slap 50% tariffs on some goods from Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy, unless it dropped the case against the former president.

Bolsonaro, who was ordered last month to wear an ankle monitor while he awaited trial, had already been told to remain at home most hours, stay away from foreign embassies and keep off social media platforms.

In the new ruling Monday, Alexandre de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice who is overseeing his case, said Bolsonaro had violated some of those terms, indirectly using social media through the accounts of his allies and sons.

A day earlier, one of those sons, a Brazilian senator, shared a video in which the former president virtually addresses his supporters in Rio de Janeiro.

In his decision, Moraes said that this violation and others were “deliberate” and made it necessary to impose more serious restrictions on Bolsonaro.

“Disobedience of the precautionary measures demonstrates contempt for judicial decisions and compromises the effectiveness of the investigation and the credibility of the Judiciary itself,” Moraes wrote in his order.

The judge also ordered the Brazilian police to seize Bolsonaro’s cellphone and limited visits to his home, except by his close family and lawyers.

Bolsonaro’s defense team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Trump has called the case against Bolsonaro, an ally with a strikingly similar political style to his own, a “witch hunt” and demanded that Brazil drop the criminal charges against him.

On Monday, the United States, through the bureau overseeing diplomacy and foreign policy across the Americas, condemned Moraes’ order and vowed to “hold accountable all those aiding and abetting sanctioned conduct.”

“Putting even more restrictions on Jair Bolsonaro’s ability to defend himself in public is not a public service,” the State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs posted on the social media platform X. “Let Bolsonaro speak!”

Last week, Trump made good on threats to apply 50% tariffs on some Brazilian products, even though the United States has carried a trade surplus with Brazil for years. The politically motivated tariffs against Brazil are the highest of any levy that Trump has imposed this year, highlighting his willingness to use economic tools to settle personal scores.

Trump has also targeted Moraes through the highly unusual use of some of the harshest human rights sanctions that the U.S. government has in its arsenal, accusing him of censoring conservative voices online.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil has publicly defied Trump for weeks, including in an interview with The New York Times, making clear that the American leader cannot meddle in Brazil’s judiciary. Lula has, however, signaled that he remains open to trade talks.

On Friday, Trump told reporters that the Brazilian president could call him “anytime he wants” to negotiate the tariffs, but repeated that “the people who are running Brazil did the wrong thing.”

The tariffs, set to go into effect this week, will affect billions in trade, though they exclude a long list of key Brazilian exports, such as commercial planes, energy products and orange juice. Last year, the United States had a $7.4 billion trade surplus with Brazil, on about $92 billion in trade.

Still, the new levies could soon make some specific goods that are sourced in large quantities from Brazil, like coffee and beef, more expensive for American consumers. Many Brazilian imports also arrive as semifinished materials that U.S. companies need to make their own products.

The measures taken last month against Bolsonaro were necessary, Moraes said, because the former president was deemed a flight risk, after his son spent months lobbying the White House to help his father’s case.

Bolsonaro is poised to face trial in the coming weeks on accusations that he orchestrated a vast plot to stage a coup and remain in power after narrowly losing the 2022 presidential elections.

Brazilian prosecutors say Bolsonaro sought to overturn the vote, dismantle courts and hand special powers to the military. Police also say the conspiracy included a plot to assassinate Lula and Moraes.

Bolsonaro denies knowledge of an assassination plan, but admits to studying “ways within the constitution” to remain in power.

After Bolsonaro left office, thousands of his supporters ransacked government buildings in Brazil’s capital, Brasília, in an episode that echoed the Jan. 6, 2021, riots on the U.S. Capitol.

Bolsonaro has suggested that immunity from prosecution, for him and his allies, is the path to an economic truce with the United States. Lawmakers aligned with Bolsonaro are pushing for an amnesty bill, though Lula is likely to veto it.