Brazil has announced it’s working on counter-measures should the Trump administration make good on its threat to punish the country and sanction its Supreme Court President over the coup attempt case against far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro. Brazil is one of the nations threatened with secondary tariffs for buying Russian oil, but not Trump ally Turkey.
The US is using its economic might to boost fellow travellers like Bolsonaro and Recep Tayyip Erdogan but also applying political pressure for purely domestic policy, like last week when the threat of sanctions was reportedly dangled if African leaders didn’t take in expelled immigrants. Is this just a bit of political theatre?
Or is the rest of the world taking seriously this blurring of the lines between economic policy and political vendettas? Does it damage – or not – the US’s street cred on the world stage? And what’s the right response when your nation gets a tariff warning from Washington?
Produced by François Picard, Rebecca Gnignati, Juliette Laffont, Ilayda Habip, Alessandro Xenos.
