Hidden in the wash of Trump's announced re-launch of his soft power global tariff regime, was a curious ultimatum issued by Trump to the Lula government in Brazil, threatening crippling 50% tariffs against the Latin American country (an official US Major Non-NATO Ally) unless Brazil's president overruled his own country's judiciary to meet Downmarket Mussolini's outrageous demands. While the mainstream media reporting on this has focused on the ideological aspect of Trump's bullying attempt, the reality is the nature of those demands speaks to 3 larger projects the regime is consistently conducting through its foreign policy: the creation of a fascist international of Trump-aligned politicians and governments abroad, the revival of US multi-administration efforts to control or remove the Brazilian Worker's Party from power, and strangling the emerging BRICS economic alliance or at least eliminating it as a viable alternative to US economic hegemony.
https://newrepublic.com/article/197865/trump-brazil-tariffs-brics-bolsonaro-lula (archive:
https://archive.ph/QQnAd)
The Deeper Reason That Trump Is Raging Against Brazil Right Now
"Right now, that nation is Brazil. Trump on Wednesday posted a letter on Truth Social addressed to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, threatening to slap 50 percent tariffs the country starting August 1 unless it ends the “witch hunt” against former President Jair Bolsonaro and reverses a Supreme Court ruling that U.S. social media companies can be held financially liable if users’ posts violate the country’s speech laws."
I've mentioned that most US foreign policy reporting is terribly dishonest, and to a degree this piece isn't different. The author focuses on the anti-BRICS angle, and offers lip service to the "Bolsonaro is a fellow-traveler" angle, without expanding on what that means and why the Trump regime cares. Furthermore, a more honest article would have mentioned the infamous and utterly bogus "Car Wash" corruption scandal the US govt (across two admins) helped create in Brazil to fuel a judicial coup against the Worker's Party and the jailing of Lula himself on laughable "corruption" changes that have since been tossed in court. A soft coup that ultimately enabled pro-Trump fascist Jair Bolsonaro to take power in the first place. This ultimatum then can be seen in part as a continued attempt by the US state to control Brazilian politics and shift it in an ever rightward, pro-corporate colonialism direction, and in part as a way to make further Trump regime interventions to ensure the installation of fascist, pro-Trump political allies, possible - a maneuver which tracks closely with the regime's efforts to bolster other fascist parties in the so-called West: in countries like France, Germany, and throughout Latin America.
Still, there is merit to the Sinophobic new Cold War and economic angles discussed here, bolstered greatly by the fact that some members of Trump's political party are openly stating as much.
"Republican Senator Eric Schmitt told Politico that “BRICS is a problem and I’m glad that [Trump’s] addressing it squarely. This is an effort by other countries to undermine the United States of America and, quite frankly, our allies.” It’s an odd statement, given that a number of BRICS members are themselves U.S. allies, notably India and Saudi Arabia. But Schmitt went even further. In a direct echo of yesteryear’s cold warriors, he added, “Countries are going to need to start to choose: Are they going to align themselves with a malign communist regime that has concentration camps or the United States?”
That's not very ambiguous is it? Taken altogether, we again see anti-China neo-McCarthyism, economic intimidation, and Trump's personal grievances or ambitions blending into longstanding US foreign policy objectives to form a repugnant, destabilizing course of action. This is, to put it bluntly, fascist ideological extortion; and even the nazis can't be arsed to deny it.
"The answer is obvious to Steve Bannon, MAGA’s leading anti-globalist, who said Brazil can easily solve its problem: “If you drop the trial and drop the charges, the tariffs go away.” When asked how this policy approach—which treats tariffs like sanctions—differed from extortion, he remarked that “it’s MAGA, baby … It’s a brave new world.” Effectively, Trump and his minions are demanding that the judicial system of Latin America’s largest nation, the fourth-biggest democracy in the world, do his bidding or suffer the consequences—specifically, a potential economic calamity that would impoverish millions of Brazilians. Furthermore, in addressing his letter to Lula, Trump is implying that the chief executive must be the one to break Brazil’s institutional order, even though the letter’s main complaints pertained to decisions by the judiciary."
I don't want to sound like a doomspeaker, but a rational woman might look at all of this and say that Trump and the Pork Reich don't seem satisfied with a US dictatorship; these nazis are after the world.
![Dessin. Un type marche en regardant son téléphone avec l'air énervé. il dit : "Un de ces jours, on va lire : Bayrou annonce la suppression des salaires. On sera même pas surpris."](https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/114/858/238/208/004/910/original/ea2320ba08e302f5.jpg "Dessin. Un type marche en regardant son téléphone avec l'air énervé. il dit : "Un de ces jours, on va lire : Bayrou annonce la suppression des salaires. On sera même pas surpris."")
