☀ Domingo Brief — Bolsonaro Sentenced

Each Sunday, take two minutes to catch key stories and opportunities shaping Latin America.

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Latinometrics
September 14, 2025 • Reading Time: 3 minutes

Welcome back to the Domingo Brief! This week, we’re keeping up with Mexican tariffs on China, a deportation-driven remittance boom, and more.

Trivia of the Week 🎯

About 72% of you correctly guessed Neymar as the most expensive footballer to be traded by a South American football club. In 2013, the Brazilian starlet was sold from boyhood club Santos in Brazil to FC Barcelona for €88M, a record that has held to this day despite hefty sums dished out for other young stars like Estêvão and Franco Mastantuono. Neymar was just 21 years old at the time, but he became the most expensive player in CONMEBOL history, South America’s continental governing body for professional football. Interestingly enough, Neymar also holds the overall record for most expensive transfer of all time, with a mind-boggling price tag of €222M paid by French club Paris Saint German to FC Barcelona in 2017.

Each week, tune back in for the answer to the previous week’s trivia question. No cheating!

Who was the last Latin American leader to be sentenced to prison PRIOR to former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro?

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🇦🇷 Argentinian markets tumbled after President Javier Milei’s party suffered a heavy defeat to the Peronist opposition in legislative elections for Buenos Aires Province. The Argentine peso fell 5% against the dollar while the country’s benchmark stock index fell 10.5%, with Argentina’s international bonds experiencing their largest fall since a 2020 $65B restructuring deal. Despite early victories in the fight against inflation and recurring budget deficits, Milei’s administration has been wracked by congressional fights and a corruption scandal involving his sister, jeopardizing his party’s prospects for the all-important national legislative elections in October.

🇧🇷 Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison for attempting a coup to remain in office following his election defeat in 2022. A panel of Brazilian Supreme Court justices made the decision, with four out of the five justices who reviewed the case finding the far-right politician guilty on five related counts which also included a plot to murder current president Lula da Silva. The historic ruling marks the first time a former Brazilian president has been convicted of attempting a coup in a country with an extensive history of such, going back to its military dictatorship of the 1960s.

Latinometrics: Bolsonaro’s trial has further polarized a politically divided country, triggering massive protests across the country of supporters claiming his trial and conviction are politically motivated. Incredibly, it has also assumed an international dimension, with US President Donald Trump, a Bolsonaro ally, criticizing the ruling and denouncing it as a “witch hunt” and asserting a response. Bolsonaro will not immediately go to prison, but instead wait for the justice panel to publish the ruling, after which his lawyers can file motions for appeals despite little chance these are accepted for hearing.

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