The president of the United States, Donald Trump, signed on Wednesday (30) an executive order that officializes the 50% charging of Brazil from next Friday (1st). In the document, the ruler states that it is “facing a national emergency”.
With the decree, in addition to the 10% taxes stipulated in April by Trump, a 40% percentage of imports in Brazil was added due to “recent policies, practices and actions of the Brazilian government that constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to national security, foreign policy and the economy of the United States.”
The US agent was based on the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Law (IEEPA) to declare a national emergency. In the document, Trump once again mentioned the trial of former President Jair Bolsonaro, saying that he and his supporters suffer “persecution, intimidation, censorship and a process politically motivated by the Brazilian government.”
According to the president, there are serious violations of human rights that undermined the rule of law in Brazil. Therefore, the measures are applicable to the country.
Trump has also condemned actions by the Supreme Court Minister Alexandre de Moraes, saying that since 2019 he “has abused his judicial authority to threaten, reach and intimidate thousands of his political opponents, protect corrupt allies, and often coordinate with other Brazilian authorities, including other Federal Supreme Court ministers, to the detriment of US companies.”
In the decree, published on the official website of the White House, the president says that the Brazilian magistrate unilaterally issued hundreds of orders to secretly censor his political critics on social networks. And, after refusal from US companies to obey the orders, he “imposed substantial fines, ordered the exclusion of Brazil’s social media companies, threatened their executives with criminal proceedings and, in one case, froze the assets of an American company in Brazil in an attempt to coerce compliance.”
The American ruler also said that Moraes is currently “supervising” the criminal process of the Brazilian government against Paulo Figueiredo, resident of the US, for speeches he made on American soil, which would violate US sovereignty. In addition, according to the executive order, “Moraes has supported criminal investigations against other US citizens after they exposed their serious human rights and corruption violations.”
