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“I did this because I can do it,” he said yesterday afternoon in the White House gardens, President Donald Trump. It was in response to the question of a journalist about the 50% tariff applied by him to import Brazilian products. Trump added: “I want money entering the country [Estados Unidos]”.
It reminded me of a phrase attributed to former President Bill Clinton about his case with a White House intern in the 1990s. The scandal came to light during an investigation into Clinton’s finances and his involvement in many episodes of sexual misconduct. He narrowly fell.
Clinton never said the phrase “I did it because I could.” But it reflects the perception that Clinton, due to his power and position, was unpunished. He tried to cover up the case and lied to Congress under oath. The House of Representatives opened a impeachment process against him. The Senate acquitted him.
The hidden reason for Trump’s tariff is his dissatisfaction with the Lula government’s foreign policy that increasingly brings Brazil closer to China. But the declared was the ongoing trial at the Federal Supreme Court of Bolsonaro and the other accused for the coup attempts in December 2022 and January 2023.
Trump does not die of love for Bolsonaro. You don’t even consider yourself your friend. Uses it, as you do with anyone else, as a piece to be moved to ensure better position on the internal or external chess board. The king is Trump that cannot be cornered. Bolsonaro is just a mere pawn.
The opposite is true: Bolsonaro loves Trump and mirrors him. He did not recognize the defeat to Lula as Trump did not recognize his to Joe Biden. If at the beginning of the Civid-19 pandemic, Trump simply ignored her, Bolsonaro as well. The capitol was invaded by trumppers. Congress here by Bolsonarists.
In interviews with CNN Brazil and 360 power, Bolsonaro confessed, referring to Trump:
“He’s unpredictable. I like him, I’m in love with him. I’m in love with the American people, the American politics, the country that is the United States, I’ve never denied it since my days as a boy. […] He treated me, treats me as a brother, and he put in that letter [a Lula]in the first line, my name. ”
It was from Tarcísio de Freitas, governor of São Paulo, the idea of dispatching Bolsonaro to the United States with the mission of asking Trump a 50%tariff. No one has taken into account because Bolsonaro is forbidden to leave the country. It will run away. Bolsonaro, however, bought the idea:
“If you continue Brazil advancing to the left, Lula talking bullshit all the time, this rate of 50% that can be diminished, I think I have the power to solve this subject. Part of it, but I have to be free to talk to Trump. At the moment, I don’t even have a passport.”
Bolsonaro stretches on the stretcher. Tarcisio changes the subject. And Lula celebrates the change of wind direction. He began to blow in his favor.
