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At the time Alexandre Padilha's father most needed help, the US took him in.

It was 1971, the height of the nation's brutal two-decade dictatorship, and Anivaldo Padilha, a young Methodist activist, had been compelled to escape his country after enduring 11 months in one of São Paulo's most notorious torture centres.

Spirited out of the country by a church group to avoid being killed, he made for Uruguay and Chile before finally escaping in the US. "In America, he was able to live the liberty he wasn't able to live in Brazil," said his son, Alexandre Padilha, who was born after his father's departure and only saw him almost a decade afterward when the political climate in Brazil began to improve.

I'd want to understand what threat my 10-year-old daughter poses to the government of the United States

Last month, she and her mother were stripped of their US visas as the Trump administration targeted people tied to Brazil's administration and supreme court as part of unsuccessful efforts to assist ex-president Jair Bolsonaro escape justice for orchestrating a 2022 coup attempt. Recently, the former president was convicted to 27 years in prison for the unsuccessful power grab.

"It is baffling what danger my young daughter poses to the nation of the United States ... that means she cannot visit the US," remarked Alexandre Padilha, who is Brazil's top health official and a well-known ally of its progressive president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Commenting in Rio, Padilha denounced the decision to target his child as an "shocking absurdity" and a "political abuse".

Ahead of Bolsonaro's trial, the US president slapped restrictions on Alexandre de Moraes presiding over the case; revoked the visas of eight of Brazil's eleven supreme court judges, including the judge; and enacted significant tariffs on Brazilian's goods.

Following Bolsonaro's conviction, the US top diplomat, Marco Rubio, hinted the US would further punish Brazil and "react appropriately to this unjust persecution".

Last month, the US official announced that the visas of two government officials involved in creating Brazil's More Doctors public health initiative had been revoked, purportedly because of the program's use of medical professionals from Cuba. Padilha thought he had avoided losing his visa because it had already lapsed. He has yet to been granted a visa for the upcoming UN meeting in New York.

The US official asserted the individuals were selected because the Brazilian program – which has brought healthcare to underserved regions – had helped benefit "the corrupt government and deny the citizens of essential medical care". But the minister, who said Cuban medics were not involved in a program he praised with saving millions of lives, felt that was a pretext.

Actually, the minister claimed the US leader's decision to target people linked to the program – including, by extension, his daughter – was a reflection of the US president's dual attack on public health and democratic institutions.

Trump's attempt to pressure Brazil's president into "intervening" in Brazil's court system over the former leader's judgment was an anti-democratic insult. "None of this will intimidate us," Padilha vowed. "Under no circumstances will we give up on protecting our nation".

Meanwhile, the minister believed Trump's focus on the Brazilian healthcare project was a manifestation of a leader who had initiated a sustained offensive on health systems and research – in the US and around the world – since regaining power.

Attacking global health means attacking the health of your own people too.

"Since the beginning of the current US government, he's launched a succession of assaults on health in the US and global health," Padilha said, pointing out how the president had reduced funding for the production of mRNA vaccines, dismissed the head of the CDC, and removed the leaders of the NIH.

"The administration has persecuted researchers, slashed funding for universities … and threatened to withdraw from the WHO." "90 percent of the WHO's operations in Africa were paid for with the US's voluntary donation – and this was cut," said Padilha, an medical specialist who displayed a white coat celebrating Brazil's public healthcare system, the SUS.

"This will affect Africa, which is deeply concerning in itself, but it will also affect the whole world … Attacking international healthcare means attacking the health of your own people too.

"That's why I say we see these measures [against my family] as an astonishing absurdity but also as having a certain consistency with the other astonishing absurdities the president of the US has committed."

Padilha said his father was perplexed by the "unthinkable" US decision to penalize his grandchild. "I never imagined the country that gave me refuge, that saved my life … subjecting my granddaughter so outrageously," he quoted the elderly man as saying.

But the minister hoped that the US's anti-public health campaign could prove an opportunity for his country. While the US top health official, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has cut investments in mRNA vaccines, the Brazilian government was investing tens of millions into research centers, Fiocruz and Butantan, which are pushing ahead with the development of such life-saving vaccines.

"Consider relocating to Brazil," was Padilha's invitation to US-based researchers and biomedical firms who were facing pressure because of the "uncertainty" under Trump.

"It is noteworthy that Brazil has managed to bring an foreign coach to lead the Brazilian football team. Now we're welcoming numerous researchers to come and do their research in Brazil," said Padilha, who noted authorities had already observed an influx of researchers from the US.

"The US president has terminated contracts with American companies … and we're going to encourage them to invest here in Brazil."

Representatives for the US embassy in the capital declined to comment on why the visas of Padilha's daughter and wife had been revoked.