Rubio described the 27-year and three-month sentence handed down by the Brazilian Supreme Court against former President Jair Bolsonaro for attempted coup d’etat on January 8, 2023, as a “witch hunt.”

“We reject the interventionist statements by the United States against Brazil. Threatening to use economic and military power, in supposed defense of freedom of expression in favor of Bolsonaro, constitutes a colonialist and unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation (…),” wrote the dignitary, Luis Arce, on his X account.

The head of state defended Brazil as a “free and sovereign country” and remembered that “Latin America is a zone of peace,” as proclaimed at the Second Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) in Havana, Cuba, in January 2014.

Recently, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in reference to the Bolsonaro trial, that “President (Donald) Trump is not afraid to use the economic and military power of the United States to protect freedom of expression around the world.”

Bolsonaro was charged with five crimes: armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law; coup d’atat; violent damage and serious threat to federal property, causing considerable damage to the victim; and damage to declared property.

This Thursday, Brazil’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected Rubio’s threat, stating that the Supreme Court gave “its response to the coup d’etat,” stating, “We will continue to defend the country’s sovereignty from aggression and attempts at interference, wherever they come from (…)”

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