Reactions to the government’s announcement of imposing a 50% tariff on Brazilian products were, as it was to expect, intense and passionate. Several noble principles have been invoked on all sides to justify their positions.
However, the misleading and merely pretextual nature of these “principles” becomes immediately evident from the lightest critical examination.
First, we have the president as a defender of freedom of expression and relentless enemy of abuse of power and authoritarianism. I have and repeatedly about the dangers of the growing regime of censorship and the various abuses of power led by Minister Alexandre de Moraes of the Federal Supreme Court (). This newspaper is already editorially against such excesses.
But the idea that President Trump is bothered by this is, at the very least, laughable. No US president – and certainly not Trump – is bothered by tyranny. On the contrary, one of the central pillars of US foreign policy has been to support, finance and arm the wildest dictators in the world as long as they serve to American interests.
The US, for decades, have overthrown democratically elected governments and supported its replacement with the most useful puppets: in Iran, Indonesia, Chile, Brazil and, more recently, in (2009), Egypt (2013), Ukraine (2014) and Bolivia (2019).
Just two months ago, Trump and efiliously praised the closest – and more tyrannic – US allies: Saudi Arabia dictatorships, United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
And all this is independent of the blatant attacks on freedom of expression promoted by the Trump government itself. He and even people for the “crime” of criticizing Israel or mocking American authorities. It also required that the main universities adopt rules of “hate discourse” that prohibit various criticism of Israel.
Whatever Trump’s reasons for imposing tariffs on Brazil, the concern with the dangers of authoritarianism is certainly not among them.
Then we have the “principles” summoned with fury by and by the Supreme Court by condemning Trump’s attempt to dictate the directions of Brazil. “Brazil is a sovereign country with independent institutions that will not accept to be protected by anyone,” Lula in response to Trump’s announcement.
Lula believes that the Brazilian judiciary is “solid and independent”? Since when? In 2018 and 2019 – when he was convicted of these same courts (with the approval of the Supreme Court, including the left national hero, Moraes) – Lula and his party insistently asked other countries and international organizations to intervene, accusing the judiciary to be fundamentally corrupted, politicized and unable to judge Lula with impartiality.
To the UN (United Nations) annulled the conviction of Lula, his lawyer who Lula “cannot obtain justice in Brazil under the current inquisitorial system”, because the same judge who investigates is what decides to blame – the same system that today applies to Bolsonaro and his allies, in which Moraes acts simultaneously as an investigator, judge and sometimes even alleged victim.
In addition to asking the UN and the OAS (Organization of American States) to cancel STF decisions about Lula, PT President Gleisi Hoffmann, gave an interview to Al Jazeera in 2018. She called Lula a “political prisoner,” said Lula’s historical friendship with the Arab world and that the Arab nations acted to press for his liberation (the Attorney General of the Republic Investigation to determine whether the petista parliamentarian “attached national sovereignty”).
Even more serious: the STF itself encouraged the interference of the Biden government in the 2022 Brazilian presidential elections. After that of the director of the American Intelligence Agency) and other emissaries to Brasilia to warn Jair Bolsonaro (PL) not to question the electoral result, the president of the STF, Luis Roberto Barroso, in a speech in New York that he had requested at least three times the US government involved. Celebrating this interference, the minister stated that she represented “decisive support … because the Brazilian military does not like to break down with the United States.”
Does the Trump government oppose abuse of power and attacks on freedom of expression? It depends on what suits you at the moment. Lula really believes that Brazilian judicial institutions are independent and reliable? Is the STF really against any American interference in the country’s political institutions? The answer is the same.
There is a lot at stake in this conflict between the United States and Brazil. Universal and genuinely defended principles, however, are not among them.
Gift Link: Did you like this text? Subscriber can release seven free hits from any link per day. Just click on F Blue below.
