BRASILIA/WASHINGTON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - The United States has removed sanctions against the Brazilian Supreme Court judge targeted for overseeing a criminal case against an ally of President Donald Trump, the Treasury Department said on Friday.
The reversal in less than five months, coming after the U.S. started rolling back steep tariffs on Brazilian goods, showed how quickly Trump has warmed to Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and moved on from an aggressive defense of his right-wing
predecessor.
The U.S. had sanctioned Justice Alexandre de Moraes under the Global Magnitsky Act in July, punishing him for overseeing the trial that led to former President Jair Bolsonaro's conviction and imprisonment for attempting a coup after losing his 2022 reelection bid.
Trump had called that trial a "witch hunt" and his administration accused Moraes of weaponizing courts, authorizing arbitrary pre-trial detentions and suppressing free speech.
On Friday, the Treasury Department also removed sanctions imposed in September on Moraes' wife, Viviane Barci, as well as sanctions placed on the Lex Institute, a financial entity controlled by Barci and other family members.
The sanctions had stoked tensions between Brasilia and Washington this summer, when President Trump imposed hefty tariffs on many goods imported from Brazil, some of which he began rolling back last month.
Friday's announcement came days after Brazilian lawmakers voted to dramatically shorten the sentences of Bolsonaro and others convicted of anti-democratic acts after the 2022 election. The legislation, which now goes to Brazil's Senate, would likely face resistance from Lula and the Supreme Court.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau welcomed the bill's passage through the lower house of Congress.
"The U.S. has consistently expressed concern over efforts to use the legal process to weaponize political differences in Brazil," Landau wrote on X, calling the approval a "first step towards addressing these abuses."
A senior Trump administration official on Friday said Moraes' "continued designation is inconsistent with U.S. foreign policy interests."
"In this regard, the United States sees the passage of an important amnesty bill by Brazil's lower house as a step in the right direction that signals lawfare conditions in Brazil are improving," the official said.
Trump and Lula discussed sanctions last week during what the U.S. leader called a "great" phone conversation, heralding what he called a "newly formed partnership" with Lula after months of tensions.
Brazil's institutional relations minister Gleisi Hoffmann said in a post on X that the lifting of sanctions is a victory for Brazil and Lula.
"It was Lula who put this revocation on the table with Donald Trump, in a proud and sovereign dialogue," she wrote.
(Reporting by Fernando Cardoso in Sao Paulo, Lisandra Paraguassu in Brasilia and Daphne Psaledakis in Washington; Writing by Brendan O'Boyle; Editing by Brad Haynes, Chris Reese and Diane Craft)
