Brazil's Supreme Court issued search warrants and restraining orders against former President Jair Bolsonaro on Friday, banning him from contacting foreign officials over allegations he had courted the interference of US President Donald Trump.

Federal police raided Bolsonaro's home and put an ankle monitor on him, an escalation in the legal pressure he is already facing and that Trump has tried to relieve with a steep tariff on Brazilian goods.

Bolsonaro told Reuters that he believed the court orders were a reaction to Trump's criticism of his trial before the Supreme Court.

The court's crackdown on Bolsonaro added to evidence that Trump's tactics are backfiring in Brazil, compounding trouble for his ideological ally and rallying public support behind a defiant leftist government.

Bolsonaro was banned from contacting foreign officials, using social media or approaching embassies, according to the decision issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who cited a "concrete possibility" of him fleeing the country.

In an interview with Reuters at his party's headquarters on Friday, Bolsonaro called Moraes a "dictator" and described the latest court orders as acts of "cowardice."

"I feel supreme humiliation," he said, when asked how he felt about wearing the ankle monitor. "I am 70 years old, I was president of the republic for four years."

Bolsonaro denied any plans to leave the country, but said he would meet with Trump if he could get access to his passport, which police seized last year.

In his decision, Moraes said the restrictions against Bolsonaro were due to accusations that the former president was making efforts to get the "head of state of a foreign nation" to interfere in Brazilian courts, which the judge cast as an attack on national sovereignty.

Bolsonaro is on trial before Brazil's Supreme Court on charges of plotting a coup to stop President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office in January 2023.

Trump has in recent weeks pressed Brazil to stop the legal case against Bolsonaro, saying that his ally was the victim of a "witch hunt".

The US president said last week he would impose a 50-percent tariff on Brazilian goods from August 1, in a letter that opened with criticism of the Bolsonaro trial. (Reuters)