Journaled on Tuesday, 19 August 2025 | Santo Cristo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 25 degrees, hot, sunny, and slightly overcast.

It is Tuesday, and Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, is almost in flames.

Since the beginning of the month, Brazil has been under tariffs from Donald Trump and the United States. It is nothing personal against Brazil; Trump has done the same to many of America’s trade partners. But Lula, Brazil’s president, and his government have taken it personally.

Where other world leaders approached the American government to renegotiate, Brazil did the opposite. It distanced itself, publicly slammed the United States and its president, and threw out threats of its own.

I have always noticed, and often said, that Brazil instinctively goes in the opposite direction of the rest of the world.

Take Lula and the PT. His is a socialist government at a moment when most of the world is drifting right. As soon as Lula became president for the third time, he increased the number of ministries from 16 to 37.

Where most governments are trying to control, or at least reduce, spending, Lula’s government has blown up the country’s budget. It is a train doing 100 mph with no brakes, completely out of control.

Parts of the government and the country’s infrastructure are already showing signs of breakdown, and there is little reason to expect that to change before the 2027 presidential elections.

Brazil is fucked, and it is difficult to see a way out. The other principal reason Brasilia is crumbling is the STF, Brazil’s Supreme Court, whose judges are referred to as ministers.

They clearly hold real power through the justice system, and what was long suspected has now been confirmed. It was the STF that released Lula from prison, where he was serving time for corruption, so he could run against Bolsonaro in the 2022 presidential election. Lula was the only politician capable of facing Bolsonaro head on, corrupt or not. Now Brazil is paying a far heavier price than before.

Throughout history, groups that concentrate power in a few hands often install a frontman to preside over the country while the real power stays with them. This is Brazil today. The STF holds the power, and they put Lula in place as their frontman, a controllable figure, charismatic but poorly prepared and, as a leader, largely out of his depth.

He is charismatic, but his rhetoric feels dated, and between that and his incompetence, he has steadily lost popularity. Brazil is in ruins, and it has been since the STF engineered his return to power. More than anyone, they are the ones to blame.

Their hunger to hold on to power is slowly killing the country. Alexandre de Moraes, the STF’s most prominent and most polarising minister, has now been sanctioned for his campaign of persecution against the right, both inside Brazil and beyond its borders.

Some of Moraes’s actions have included forcing major American tech and social media companies to hand over private information on government opponents, right-wing politicians, journalists, and anyone critical of the administration. That is political persecution at the highest level.

Donald Trump, in response, sanctioned Moraes under the Magnitsky Act, which bars him from using or doing business with American companies, including banks, credit card companies, and airlines, as well as from engaging in any activity with American ties.

In Brazil, this has been called financial death because there is almost nothing you can do financially once it applies, given how much of the international banking system runs on American infrastructure.

There are other consequences too, including visa cancellations for his entire family, not just for him, from entering the United States and other countries. Many consider Alexandre de Moraes a man with no limits and no remorse. Whatever measures America takes, he only doubles down further.

Beyond calling him a psychopath, which seems fairly clear, there are two broader points worth understanding here.

First: in life, in work, relationships, business, everything, there is a line. Cross it and there is no way back. The STF and Moraes crossed that line long ago. They know it, and the only direction left is forward, doubling down again and again until something, or someone, breaks. It is a downward spiral with no way out.

Second: there is always a bigger fish. The STF and Moraes believed they had reached the top, untouchable, beyond anyone’s reach. Perhaps that was true within Brazil. But they did not expect a bigger shark to swim in from outside those waters: Donald Trump.

His intervention has reshaped Brazil’s political and economic landscape in a remarkably short time. And with the possibility of more corrupt ministers, judges, and politicians facing sanctions, the fear inside the STF is real. Good.

The bully who terrorised the whole school, the one everyone was afraid of, is now the one shaking, because someone finally stood up to him, for himself, for others, for the country. Like most bullies, his power was never more than size and backing. The moment someone stands their ground, it starts to crumble.

What is happening in Brazil right now feels like a kind of cleansing. If the United States and Trump do not back down, this could end up being genuinely good for Brazil over the medium to long term.

It is also a simple truth: if you cannot keep your own house in order, someone eventually does it for you. That is Brazil’s situation now.

Every corrupt official with even a little power now has the Magnitsky Act hanging over their head, a sword of Damocles waiting to fall when they least expect it.

Brazil has never, historically or internally, managed to fully get its act together. And with Lula back for a third term, the situation has only gotten worse, both domestically and on the world stage.

It is almost a matter of child psychology: if you cannot manage your own affairs, someone from outside eventually will.

If it is not love, it is a lesson!