Trump has strategy. And who doesn’t understand that will be left behind

Dear President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Counselor Celso Amorim,

I’m sorry to say, but the world you try to interpret no longer. That mental map built between the end of the Cold War and the early years of the BRICS became a diplomatic fiction. To persist in it is to condemn Brazil to irrelevance or, worse, to isolation.

I am particularly pleased to see that someone like Walter Russell Mead – a Yale teacher, a member of the Hudson Institute, columnist at Wall Street Journal – wrote an article that goes exactly the same line that I have been defending. We are two Walters with very similar readings about the reality that has been imposed. Trump has strategy. And who doesn’t understand that will be left behind.

American strategy has changed because reality has imposed itself. Soft Power failed. They ran a hand in the American wallet for decades. The US financed China’s growth, tolerated European protectionism, paid NATO’s bill, were humiliated in Afghanistan. Good faith alone does not support the international order. And Donald Trump, like him or not, was the first president to recognize this and act with consequence.

Mead’s article at Wall Street Journal is a realism class. Trump is not a lunatic, as they like to repeat here. It is a disruptor with strategy. Putin meetings in one day, Zelensky the next. Veiled criticism of NATO followed by compliments calculated to Europeans. It looks like chaos, it’s method. There is no inconsistency: there is negotiation in a gross state.

When Trump calls Macron “Emmanuel” and listens back to a respectful “Mr. President”, he is making it clear. This is not the eagerness, but a demonstration of symbolic force. Trump forces allies to recognize their centrality. And they recognize.

More than words, it is the movements that reveal the plan. The agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, mediated by Washington, took from Putin the control over the caucasus’ energy flow. A dry, silent blow, where it hurts the most. At the same time, Trump nods with a Ice with Beijing. Beijing, which, by the way, flirts with the idea of ​​supporting Putin in Ukraine in exchange for commercial concessions. If China understands that the US can relieve the pressure, Xi may be back. Everything is pressure game. Everything is bargain.

And the tariffs? Worked. Europe and Japan gave in. The agreements came. Brazil, no. And paid with 50% rates in key products. But this is not a text about Brazil. I already wrote about it. This is a text about strategy. About real -world understanding.

Lula failed the international protagonism I imagined. Today, he is an older, more dogmatic and increasingly anachronistic president. Forging South-South Alliances that do not support themselves, it preaches the weakening of the dollar as if it were 2006 and believes it can cross the global board without being noticed. But the world has again centered. And he is called Washington.

Meanwhile, the US positions military ships near the Venezuela coast. The message is clear. And Brazil, once again, closes its eyes to the problem. It pretends not to see the fraudulent elections, brutal repression, humanitarian collapse. Rehabilitate dictatorships, squeeze the hand of criminals and sit at the table of terrorists. Alckmin, in the middle of international meeting, surrounded by autocrats, smiles and poses for photos. And then it clashes with the fact that Brazil is no longer taken seriously. Brazil is choosing its partners based on ideology and nostalgia. And the price of this will be paid in real, dollar and isolation.

And then Minister Flávio Dino comes in, declaring that Brazil will not comply with the magnitsky law, which punishes human rights violations with financial sanctions. It sounds like a legal bravado, but it is not. Magnitsky law is accepted by several western countries and requires banks and companies to align themselves. Destroying to comply can lead Brazil to international financial isolation. Has anyone warned Dino what it means to be excluded from Swift? Or is he playing chess with lady pieces?

Bypassing Putin is essential. Contain it now to later bring it close and push it away from China. The dispute is against Beijing, and Latin America is also a battlefield. Chile, Ecuador, Colombia Brazil itself is on the radar. Itamaraty should know that. The plateau, too. But they don’t seem to understand.

The case of Iran is emblematic. For over two decades, he tried to deceive the world: he systematically displeased the nuclear non-village agreement, fueled terrorist groups, exported drones to Russia to use in the Ukraine war. He thought he could eternally bend the international community. Until you could no longer. Iran was dismantled – with American support and Israeli execution. Technologically humiliated, he saw his planes do not take off, his command systems fail. Cell phones exploded in the hands of generals. There were meetings in which participants had been infiltrated for over a decade. The message was clear: the conversation is over. After twenty years of strategic patience, the time has come. And when this moment comes, the force is surgical, ruthless and definitive.

Brazil is not understanding the severity of this. And maybe China starts to understand now. Trump does not want reelection. He doesn’t need a political career. He wants to correct the course of history. For that, it is in a hurry. It has clarity. And has power.

The Brazilian press, part of it, still portrays him as an agent of chaos. But the question that needs to be asked is: who is the democratic country? Who guarantees capital mobility, freedom of expression, free association and critical press? Who does not pursue dissidents or suffocate entrepreneurs? Who does not oppress their own people?

Trump is not Bolsonaro. It is a billionaire who won in the most competitive real estate market in the world. Las Vegas and New York are not for amateurs. He did not inherit a dynasty. He built. Negotiated. Imposed. His world is the harsh bargain, the result. And now, this world is ours. Perhaps it is worth watching. Maybe it’s time to listen. Brazil does not need to agree with Trump. But you need to understand it. Or we will pay dearly.

Respectfully,

Walter Maciel