REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes Alexandre Ramagem (left) was a close ally of Brazil's jailed former President Jair Bolsonaro Brazil's fugitive former spy chief Alexandre Ramagem has been released from custody by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). ICE confirmed it had detained Ramagem on Monday, but has not said why. The 53-year-old's name no longer appears on the agency's list of those in its custody, BBC News Brasil has confirmed. He is wanted in Brazil, where he was sentenced to 16 years in prison for his role in an attempted military coup aimed at keeping former President Jair Bolsonaro in power after he lost the 2022 election. Ramagem, who led Brazil's intelligence agency (Abin), fled to the US in September 2025 before he could be jailed by Brazilian authorities. Bolsonaro's son Eduardo, who lives in the US, said on Thursday that the former intelligence chief was "out and home". In a post on social media, he thanked US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for "the sensitivity with which they dealt with this true national hero, who does not give up even when he is being persecuted". Referencing Ramagem's reported request for sanctuary in the US, Bolsonaro added that the ex-spy chief deserved being granted "asylum in the land of liberty". Brazilian media reported he had been let go on Wednesday. ICE has not commented on his release following his detention in Orlando, Florida. A close ally of former President Bolsonaro, the 53-year-old was one of seven co-conspirators convicted alongside him over the military coup. He is also under investigation for allegedly using his position at Abin to illegally spy on Bolsonaro's critics, which he has denied. Brazilian judicial authorities have declared him a fugitive, and in December the country's supreme court asked the US to extradite him. Speaking before his release, President Lula said he must "return to Brazil to serve his sentence". Trump has in the past said Bolsonaro had been "a good president of Brazil" and called the trial over the coup a "witch hunt". He also described Bolsonaro's 27-year jail sentence as "very surprising" at the time.

Brazil’s largely conservative congress has approved a bill reducing the prison sentence of the far-right former president [Jair Bolsonaro](https://www.theguardian.com/world/jair-bolsonaro), who was convicted last year of attempting a coup. The bill had initially been [passed](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/18/brazilian-congress-passes-bill-cut-jair-bolsonaro-prison-term) by congress in December, but President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva [vetoed](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/08/brazil-president-lula-vetoes-bill-jair-bolsonaro-prison-sentence) it in January in a symbolic move marking three years since Bolsonaro supporters ransacked the capital, Brasília. In a session on Thursday, the lower house overturned the veto with 318 votes, well above the 257 required, and the senate followed by 49 votes, with 41 needed. If confirmed by a supreme court justice, Bolsonaro’s sentence would fall from 27 years and three months to 22 years and one month. Another significant change would be the time served in a closed regime, which could drop from what legal experts estimate at between four and six years to between two and four years, meaning the former president could move to an open regime as early as 2028. It marked a second major blow in less than 24 hours for the leftwing president, who will [seek re-election](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/13/lula-da-silva-gym-rat-brazil-president-livestreams-workouts-campaign-historic-fourth-term) in October in what is expected to be a tight race against one of Bolsonaro’s sons, the senator [Flávio Bolsonaro](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/03/flavio-is-surname-dropping-son-downplaying-bolsonaro-connection), who took part in the vote. On Wednesday night, Lula suffered a [historic defeat](https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/brazils-senate-rejects-nomination-lulas-solicitor-general-supreme-court-seat-2026-04-29/) when he became the first president in more than 130 years to have a nominee, the lawyer Jorge Messias, to the supreme court rejected by the senate. Although both the overturning of the veto and the rejection of the court nominee had in some form been anticipated, they are being widely interpreted in [Brazil](https://www.theguardian.com/world/brazil) as further evidence that Lula, who in polls appears virtually tied with Bolsonaro’s son, will face a difficult election. [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/30/brazils-congress-approves-bill-reducing-prison-sentence-of-former-president-jair-bolsonaro#img-2) Flavio Bolsonaro (centre), celebrates with Conservative members of Brazil’s congress after the vote to reduce sentences for coup attempts imposed on his father. Photograph: André Borges/EPA Despite the overturning of Lula’s veto, the reduction of Bolsonaro’s sentence, as he remains under [house arrest](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/24/brazil-jair-bolsonaro-house-arrest-health), will not be automatic; his lawyers will need to file a request for a sentence review with the supreme court. The new law reduces not only his sentence but also that of about 280 others convicted over the [attempted coup](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/11/jair-bolsonaro-conviction-attempted-coup-what-happens-next-explainer) to overturn the result of the 2022 election, when the incumbent Bolsonaro was defeated by Lula. Lula has not yet commented on the decision. When he vetoed the bill in January, he said reducing sentences for an attempted coup would encourage similar crimes in the future. “This man \[Bolsonaro\] must remain in prison,” he said. The president has also not announced whether he intends to put forward a new nominee for the vacant seat on the supreme court. His previous nominee, Messias, the government’s current solicitor general, delivered an anti-abortion speech during his senate hearing and was seen as an attempt to appeal to [evangelical voters](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/06/brazil-catholics-evangelicals-religion-census), who make up 26.9% of the population and have overwhelmingly backed Bolsonaro. The senate had not rejected a presidential nominee since 1894, and the decision is widely attributed to an agreement between the senate president, Davi Alcolumbre, and the opposition led by Flávio Bolsonaro, as well as for retaliation over Lula’s refusal to nominate a candidate backed by Alcolumbre. The senate president has [reportedly](https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/politica/a-senadores-alcolumbre-diz-que-so-avalia-nova-indicacao-apos-eleicoes/) told close allies that he will only allow a new confirmation hearing after the election. If Flávio Bolsonaro were to win, and given the number of justices expected to retire in the next four years, along with two previously appointed by his father, the Bolsonaro family could secure a majority of six out of the court’s 11 justices.

The [Trump administration](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) proposed 25% tariffs on imports from [Brazil](https://www.theguardian.com/world/brazil), charging that the world’s 10th-biggest economy engages in trade practices that are “unreasonable’’ and that “burden or restrict US commerce”. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said he received the decision “with indignation”. The Brazil president also blamed the decision by the US administration on his rival in October’s elections, [Flávio Bolsonaro](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/14/flavio-bolsonaro-banker-film-jair-bolsonaro), the senator who visited Washington last week. The senator is the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, once nicknamed “the Trump of the Tropics” by his allies. The announcement late on Monday came after an investigation by the office of the US trade representative, charging [Brazil](https://www.theguardian.com/world/brazil) with lax anti-corruption enforcement and unfair tariffs of its own, among other things. The US has had a goods trade surplus with Brazil for years. The US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, said that he and [Donald Trump](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) had “constructive’’ meetings with Lula and other Brazilian officials. But he said: “We continue to have substantial differences in resolving the issues identified in this investigation.’’ Lula on Tuesday cited other reasons for the punishing tariff proposal. For the first time he named an American official as a hurdle to his relations with Trump and once again he threatened to retaliate. “I spoke to President Trump for three hours, and that Marco Rubio guy, the head of the state department, he is anti-Latin American,” Lula said. “He is a deadly enemy of Cuba, a deadly enemy of many Latin American countries. I already told Trump that he does not like Brazil.” The US state department did not immediately respond a request for comment from the Associated Press on Tuesday. Brazil’s government said in a statement that its dialogue with American counterparts, which includes “personal involvement of Presidents Lula and Trump”, was being “sabotaged by merely electoral and family matters” of the Bolsonaros. It added that it hoped “the recommendations do not become effective tariffs”. “But we stress we will adopt every measure that is capable of reducing the damage that might be caused to the national economy, to the jobs and the income of Brazilians,” the country’s government said. Last year, Trump had slapped Brazil [with a 50% tariff](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/10/trump-lula-tariffs-brazil-explainer), mainly to protest against its prosecution of Jair Bolsonaro for trying to overturn his electoral defeat in 2022. His relationship with Lula seemed to have improved in early May, when the Brazilian visited the White House. But last week, the Trump administration designated two Brazilian gangs as terrorist organizations after Bolsonaro’s visit. Lula [opposes](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/29/brazil-gangs-terrorist-rubio) the designation, which analysts say could bolster his political rival. Greer’s office has scheduled a public hearing on 6 July on the proposed tariffs. Ryan Majerus, a trade lawyer and partner at King & Spalding, said that the administration’s plan excludes more than half of US imports from Brazil, including aircraft and key minerals. The Trump administration [invoked](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/09/trump-tariffs-brunei-libya-moldova) section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to launch the investigation into Brazil’s trade practices. Bolsonaro travelled to meet officials in Washington last week in the wake of a scandal at home in which he admitted receiving funds from a disgraced banker. Another son, the former lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, was also present. On Tuesday, Trump posted a photo of the Bolsonaros in the Oval Office on his social media site. “These sons of Bolsonaro can be worse than him. They are actually sellouts of our country, they went there to ask a foreign nation to meddle in Brazilian affairs,” Lula said in a speech to residents of the city of Catalão, south of capital Brasília. “They are traitors.” The US supreme court [ruled](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/20/trump-supreme-court-tariffs-ruling) in February that Trump overstepped his authority by using a different law – the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977 – to impose sweeping tariffs on US trading partners, including Brazil. However, section 301 tariffs have survived legal challenges, and the administration is likely to use that authority to impose other tariffs and to recoup some of the tax revenue lost when the supreme court rejected the IEEPA tariffs. Brazil’s president said that during a visit to Washington in early May, he handed Trump documents showing that the US has a trade surplus with Brazil. Documents published by the US trade representative show that last year, US exports to Brazil rose nearly 11% to $54.4bn. Brazilian exports to the US fell 5.7% to $39.9bn, meaning the US had a trade surplus of more than $14bn. The trade imbalance for services is more lopsided in favor of the US, with services exports in 2024 reaching $29.6bn, quadruple the Brazilian services exports to the US. “I am not going to cry about it,” Lula said. “If they \[the US\] don’t want to buy from us, we will sell to someone else.” China has been Brazil’s biggest trading partner for about a decade.

The Trump administration proposed 25% tariffs on imports from Brazil, charging that the world’s 10th-biggest economy engages in trade practices that are “unreasonable’’ and that “burden or restrict U.S. commerce WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration proposed 25% tariffs on [imports from Brazil](https://apnews.com/article/brazil-us-tariffs-coffee-beef-trump-7241778cfdfae17e36ffdd15d8a36652), charging that the world’s 10th-biggest economy engages in trade practices that are “unreasonable’’ and that “burden or restrict U.S. commerce.’’ The announcement late Monday came after an investigation by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, charging Brazil with lax [anti-corruption enforcement](https://apnews.com/article/brazil-lula-trump-meeting-8f17492d981f99b74f4b37a6d9def2ea) and unfair tariffs of its own, among other things. U.S Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that he and President Donald Trump had had “constructive’’ meetings with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and other Brazilian officials. But he said that “we continue to have substantial differences in resolving the issues identified in this investigation.’’ Greer’s office has scheduled a public hearing July 6 on the proposed tariffs. Trade lawyer Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding, noted said that the administration’s plan excludes more than half of U.S. imports from Brazil, including aircraft and key minerals. [  ](https://abcnews.com/Politics/usha-vance-supreme-court-federal-judges-treated-respect/story?id=133496203) [  ](https://abcnews.com/US/wireStory/iowa-democrats-settle-tense-senate-primary-party-flip-133504445) [  ](https://abcnews.com/GMA/Culture/disney-celebrates-america-lineup-announced-americas-250th-anniversary/story?id=133496201) The Trump administration invoked [Section 301](https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-manufacturing-china-eu-6f4243502a1d8ce6c301f39c083a93e9) of the Trade Act of 1974 to launch the investigation into Brazil’s trade practices. Last year, Trump had slapped Brazil with a 50% tariff, mainly to protest its prosecution of his ally, former president [Jair Bolsonaro](https://apnews.com/article/brazil-flavio-bolsonaro-presidential-campaign-trump-risk-cfbb9c79cb66242940ef12bf4ba246d8), for trying to overturn his electoral defeat in 2022. But the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in February that Trump [overstepped his authority](https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-tariffs-trump-0485fcda30a7310501123e4931dba3f9) by using a different law – the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977 – to impose sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners, including that one that targeted Brazil. However, Section 301 tariffs have survived legal challenges, and the administration is likely to use that authority to impose other tariffs and to recoup some of the tax revenue lost when the Supreme Court rejected the IEEPA tariffs.

Brazil’s leftwing president, [Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva](https://www.theguardian.com/world/luiz-inacio-lula-da-silva), has launched his campaign for a historic fourth term and vowed that as long as he lived he would not allow the “shameless” right to return to power. Addressing a sea of supporters in São Bernardo do Campo, the industrial city where his political career began nearly half a century ago, the 80-year-old politician reminded voters of the chaos and violence that unfolded during [the 2018-22 presidency of his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/04/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-election-unfloppable-lost), whose son [Flávio Bolsonaro will face Lula in October’s presidential election](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/03/flavio-is-surname-dropping-son-downplaying-bolsonaro-connection). Lula recalled how hundreds of thousands of citizens died during a Covid outbreak [Jair Bolsonaro](https://www.theguardian.com/world/jair-bolsonaro) was accused of bungling with his anti-science policies. Gun ownership soared as laws were relaxed, allowing criminal groups to expand their arsenals. “They handed out … more than a million weapons,” Lula said, promising to dedicate a fourth term to improving education and healthcare as well as developing Brazil’s rare-earth deposits, the world’s second largest after China’s. [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/16/lula-brazil-president-fourth-term-jair-flavio-bolsonaro#img-2) Lula launched his re-election campaign at the Vila Euclides football stadium, where his rise to the presidency began in 1979 as a union leader. Photograph: Sebastião Moreira/EPA Lula also said he would improve security by targeting the rich organised crime bosses who lived in luxury apartments. “It’s easy to kill a crook in a favela. But the guy running the show lives in a penthouse … and we need to stop this,” Lula said. He also told his far-right rivals to “show some shame”. Lula was speaking at the Vila Euclides football stadium, where his astonishing rise to the presidency began in 1979 when, as 33-year-old union leader, he spearheaded two historic strikes that helped end the military dictatorship. Those strikes made Lula a household name and in 2002, after three failed attempts, [he won a landslide victory](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/oct/29/brazil.alexbellos) to become his country’s first working-class president. During Lula’s first two-terms, from 2002 until 2010, he was credited with fighting hunger, dramatically expanding social welfare programmes and access to higher education, and improving Brazil’s global standing, although his administration was blighted by corruption scandals. His successor, Dilma Rousseff, became Brazil’s first female president but led the country into a severe economic recession before [being controversially impeached](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/31/dilma-rousseff-impeachment-brazil-what-you-need-to-know) in 2016. In 2018, Lula was jailed for alleged corruption and he spent 580 days in prison before the supreme court [quashed his conviction](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/08/lula-convictions-annulled-by-brazil-judge-bolsonaro-election-2022). Lula’s imprisonment allowed Bolsonaro to win that year’s election, ushering in four years of environmental destruction and international isolation. In 2022 Lula won his third term, defeating Bolsonaro by a razor-thin margin and vowing to rescue the country from “one of the worst periods in Brazilian history”. “This nightmare is over,” Lula declared at his January 2023 inauguration. A week later, far-right radicals rampaged through the capital, Brasília, in [a botched attempt to bring Bolsonaro back](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/08/jair-bolsonaro-supporters-storm-brazils-presidential-palace-and-supreme-court). [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/16/lula-brazil-president-fourth-term-jair-flavio-bolsonaro#img-3) Flávio Bolsonaro and his wife, Fernanda Bolsonaro, arrive for his campaign launch event at Rio’s Copacabana beach. Photograph: Silvia Izquierdo/AP Bolsonaro was [jailed in 2025 for 27 years](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/11/brazil-supreme-court-bolsonaro-guilty-coup) for plotting that failed post-election power grab. Flávio Bolsonaro, a 45-year-old senator, launched his campaign on Sunday with an event on Rio’s Copacabana beach, previously the scene of huge rallies in support of his father. “I am going to be Brazil’s next president because I’m going to fight this system,” Bolsonaro, who wore a bullet-proof vest under a yellow Brazil shirt, told a crowd far smaller than those his father used to attract. Polls suggest Lula holds a slender advantage over Bolsonaro, with 43% of intended votes to his rival’s 40% in a run-off which will take place on 25 October if, as expected, no candidate secures 50% of the vote in the 4 October first round. André Pagliarini, the author of a book about Lula called A People’s President and the Fight for Brazil’s Future, said the showdown would be “the single most important electoral contest this year in the world”. Pagliarini said he believed a Bolsonaro victory would be a significant boost for the [pro-Trump “reactionary block”](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/25/javier-milei-latin-america-tour-far-right) that has won elections across Latin America, from Argentina and Chile to Colombia, where the far-right lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella recently took office. Donald Trump’s administration has repeatedly asserted its leadership over the region, launching deadly military operations against alleged “narco-terrorists” in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific, [threatening to “take back” the Panama canal](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/26/panic-and-defiance-in-panama-after-trump-threatens-to-take-back-canal) and, in January, [abducting Venezuela’s dictator](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/09/fear-uncertainity-venezuela-after-maduro-trump-us), Nicolás Maduro. Last week, the US state department published [an incendiary video](https://x.com/StateDept/status/2087172343969771810?s=20) declaring that “American dominance in the western hemisphere will never be questioned again”. [](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/16/lula-brazil-president-fourth-term-jair-flavio-bolsonaro#img-4) Flávio Bolsonaro’s campaign launch event on Sunday. Donald Trump’s administration has increasingly asserted its leadership over the region and recently designated Brazil’s two biggest organised crime groups as terrorist organisations. Photograph: Bruna Prado/AP ​In recent months Trump has turned up the heat on Brazil, designating its two biggest organised crime groups, the Red Command and the PCC, as terrorist organisations. That has kindled fears of a US military intervention on Brazilian soil or interference in Brazil’s presidential election. During a visit to a jungle training camp in Panama on Friday, Trump’s defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said Washington planned to use the military to “ruthlessly” pursue Latin American drug traffickers, “just like \[they did with\] Isis and al-Qaida” during the “war on terror”. The idea, Hegseth said, was to “do bad things to bad people – because for too long, bad people did bad things to good people inside the United States of America and across Central and South America”. There was anger at the US outside Lula’s campaign launch on Sunday, where some activists handed out stickers that read: “Fuck Trump.” Seixas Alves, a 33-year-old Lula supporter, said he worried [the decision to classify Brazilian drug factions as terrorist groups](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/29/brazil-gangs-terrorist-rubio) could be used as a pretext for a US attack. “Just like they \[did with\] Saddam Hussein,” Alves added, referring to the Iraqi dictator’s supposed development of weapons of mass destruction. In Rio, Flávio Bolsonaro praised Trump’s decision to target the Brazilian crime groups and said he was the only politician capable of “sitting down with the US”. In Vila Euclides, Simone Tebet, a centrist Lula ally, urged voters to do everything they could to stop Brazil falling back into the hands of far-right politicians who wanted “to kill Brazilian democracy” and create “a country of hate”.