Read our editorial on Trump’s sanctions here.
In a vulgar and open act of political manipulation and control over Brazil, ultra-reactionary US president Donald Trump is set to impose a 50% tariff on the oppressed nation. The new tariff will go into effect August 1st if Brazil does not “stop the witch hunt” against its former president and right-wing extremist Jair Bolsonaro, Trump posted to his “Truth Social.” Trump and Bolsonaro have long been compared, with the latter implementing far-right policies to sell his country, and the former to dominate other countries.
Bolsonaro is facing half-measure charges for a coup plot which he was unable to complete in 2022, while the current administration makes peace with the far-right followers of Bolsonaro against the peasantry. Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva responded to the threat in a boisterous but empty manner, only indicating that he would reciprocate, with the added flourish of defending Brazil’s “sovereignty.”
Brazil is economically subordinated to US imperialism and run by a government of bureaucratic capitalists and large landlords; its administrations have historically sold out the people in the interest of pleasing mainly the US. Any claims of real sovereignty are farcical. Brazil is also a part of BRICS, which increasingly factors into the inter-imperialist contradiction.
BRICS is an intergovernmental organization that includes both Russia and China, both of which operate in collusion and contention with US imperialism. This Sunday, Trump called the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro “anti-American” and claimed that all the countries in attendance would face an increased 10% tariff.
This week, Trump also hosted an “African leaders” summit in Washington DC, but only 5 countries from the continent were permitted to join: Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania, and Senegal. Each country possesses rare minerals used in tech manufacturing and was openly courted away from interest in joining BRICS. No BRICS country was included in the summit. In the meeting, the sell-out African leaders heaped praise on Trump, begging for increased foreign capital from the US to dominate their countries, especially in the wake of Trump’s sweeping cuts to low-intensity domination through US “aid.” According to the White House, this open arrangement for super-exploitation and semi-colonialism offers “incredible commercial opportunities” to the oppressed nations which US imperialism contends for in its competition with Chinese social-imperialism in the tech sector.
The increasing US contention with China has consequences around the world. It is centered on manufacturing technology in order for the US to remain the world’s sole-hegemonic imperialist superpower, a role it has held since the fall of Soviet social-imperialism.
Image: Trump meeting Jair Bolsonaro in 2020 at the Mar-a-Lago resort. Credit: Trump White House on Flickr.
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