The Deeper Reason That Trump Is Raging Against Brazil Right Now

It was in this context, two days after the BRICS summit concluded, that Trump posted his letter to Lula, which was a victory for Bolsonaro’s inner circle. Earlier this year, the ex-president’s son Eduardo, a member of Congress, relocated to the U.S. to lobby MAGA full-time on his father’s behalf. Little seemed to come of those efforts until the BRICS summit. Indeed, it was reportedly the meeting in Rio that prompted Trump to act on his supplicant’s request—a vivid reminder of the president’s tendency to mix decisions of weighty geopolitical consequence with personal caprice.

Trump didn’t mention BRICS in his letter to Lula, but his acolytes were quick to try to thread the various messages being sent. 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?”

Most of the world rejects this binary choice, as well as Washington’s self-proclaimed authority to issue such ultimatums. Residents of other countries are usually quicker to recognize U.S. hypocrisy than American officials are to acknowledge any. (The U.S., home to Alligator Alcatraz, is in no position lately to be lecturing other countries about concentration camps.) As the BRICS bloc gradually consolidates itself as a viable alternative to the postwar U.S.-led global order—with its own infrastructure bank, think tanks, and annual fora—Washington will be faced with the question of how to respond. Will it adapt to a multipolar order it cannot fully control or insist on increasingly forceful displays of raw power?

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.