Exclusive-Brazil judge targeted by US sanctions confident of Trump reversal
BRASILIA (Reuters) -The judge at the center of escalating tensions between Brazil and the United States told Reuters he is counting on a change of heart from President Donald Trump to unwind sanctions against him, which he said lack consensus within the U.S. government.
Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has ratcheted up restraining orders against former President Jair Bolsonaro during his trial for an alleged 2022 coup plot. Trump demanded an end to the case that he calls a "witch hunt" as he slapped a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods and hit Moraes with financial sanctions that are putting Brazil's banks on edge.
Despite fears of a spiraling crisis for bilateral relations, the judge expressed confidence in a late Tuesday interview at his Brasilia office that sanctions would be unwound against him via diplomatic channels or an eventual challenge in U.S. courts.
"A judicial challenge is possible and I have not yet found a U.S. or Brazilian lawyer or scholar who doubts the courts would overturn. But at this moment, I've chosen to wait. That's my choice. It's a diplomatic matter for the country," said Moraes.
The standoff with Trump is the highest-profile test yet for the 56-year-old jurist, whose bald visage and muscular frame have come to define the Brazilian high court he joined eight years ago. He has taken the lead on many of the court's most prominent cases, cowing Elon Musk in a showdown over his social media platform, sending hundreds of right-wing rioters in the capital to prison and barring Bolsonaro from running for office.
Navigating the U.S. crackdown on his personal finances and bilateral trade with Brazil has done little to change his routine, he said, which includes boxing, martial arts and a new favorite book: Henry Kissinger's "Leadership," the late U.S. diplomat's final volume on 20th century statecraft.
Moraes said he trusts diplomacy will restore his standing in Washington. He said prosecutors blamed the current fallout on a campaign by allies of Bolsonaro, including the former president's lawmaker son Eduardo, who is in the U.S. and under investigation in Brazil for courting Trump's intervention in his father's case.
"Once the correct information has been passed along, as is being done now, and the documented information reaches the U.S. authorities, I believe it won't even require any legal action to reverse (the sanctions). I believe that the U.S. executive branch itself, the president, will reverse them," Moraes said.
Pressed on the reason for that confidence, Moraes said he was aware of internal divisions in the U.S. government that had slowed the sanctions and could still undermine them.
"There was reluctance in the State Department and great reluctance in the Treasury Department," he said, without elaborating or explaining how he received that information.
A State Department official with knowledge of the matter told Reuters separately that the sanctions against Moraes had faced substantial pushback from career officials.
The actions against Moraes were "completely, legally inappropriate," said the source on condition of anonymity, adding that officials from the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control had initially said no but were overruled.
A Treasury spokesperson said: "The Treasury Department and Office of Foreign Assets Control, along with the entire Trump administration, is in lockstep that Alexandre de Moraes has engaged in serious human rights abuse. Rather than concocting a fantasy fiction, de Moraes should stop carrying out arbitrary detentions and politicized prosecutions."
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Brazilian courts could punish Brazilian financial institutions for seizing or blocking domestic assets in response to U.S. orders, Moraes also said in the interview.
(Reporting by Brad Haynes and Ricardo Brito in BrasiliaAdditional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter and David LawderEditing by Rosalba O'Brien)
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