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US President Donald Trump has weighed in on the legal troubles of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, urging Brazilian authorities to end what he called a "WITCH HUNT." Bolsonaro, who served as president from 2019 to 2022, is currently on trial for allegedly attempting a coup against current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a charge he denies.
In a social media post, Trump said Bolsonaro was "not guilty of anything, except having fought for THE PEOPLE" and told prosecutors to "LEAVE BOLSONARO ALONE!"
President Lula said Brazil is a sovereign country that "won't accept interference or instruction from anyone."
"No one is above the law. Especially those that threaten freedom and the rule of law," he wrote in a post on X.
In his earlier post on Truth Social, Trump praised Bolsonaro as a "strong leader" who "truly loved his country".
The US president compared Bolsonaro's prosecution to the legal cases he himself faced between his two presidential terms.
"This is nothing more, or less, than an attack on a Political Opponent - Something I know much about! It happened to me, times 10," Trump said.
Bolsonaro thanked Trump for his comments, describing the case against him as "clear political persecution" in a social media post
The back and forth comes as Lula hosted representatives from China, Russia and other nations at a Brics summit in Rio de Janeiro.
Trump had earlier threatened to levy additional tariffs against countries aligned with what he called the bloc's "anti-American" policies.
Trump and Bolsonaro enjoyed a friendly relationship when their presidencies overlapped, with the pair meeting at the White House in 2019.
Both men subsequently lost presidential elections and both refused to publicly acknowledge defeat.
A week after Lula's inauguration in January 2023, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings in the capital, Brasilia, in what federal investigators say was an attempted coup. Bolsonaro was in the United States at the time and has always denied any links to the rioters.
He has been barred from running for public office until 2030 for falsely claiming Brazil's voting system was vulnerable to fraud, but he has said he intends to fight that ban and run for a second term in 2026.
