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Donald Trump’s demand that Brazil stop its “witch hunt” of the so-called “Trump of the Tropics,” or face a 50 percent tariff shows that he is bored with being just the president of the US.
He’s now “Emperor of the Americas,” ordering the end to the criminal prosecution of ex-Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who like Trump felt Brazil’s last election was rigged.
Brazil’s treatment of Bolsonaro is “an international disgrace,” according to Trump. He was “a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his Term.”
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva responded to Trump’s threatening letter by saying his country isn’t going to be tutored by anyone. He told Trump to take a hike.
Brazil’s foreign ministry returned the letter to the acting US ambassador.
That’s beside the point. Trump has turned the notion of tariffs upside down. The US enjoys a trade surplus with Brazil.
Trump sees tariffs as just another PR tool to keep him in the spotlight.
The Emperor’s royal guard… ICE Funding from Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill (which is more fittingly called “Big, Beautiful Bonkers Bill” by The Economist) will make Immigration and Customs Enforcement the most generously funded paramilitary force in the country, noted world chess champion and democracy advocate Garry Kasparov.
During the next four years, ICE is in line for $30B to hire more agents and $45B to build more jails.
ICE intends to add 10,000 new officers, which will result in a ratio of agents to undocumented immigrants at about 1:400.
Kasparov said that ratio is within striking distance of East Germany’s feared Stasi secret police force that had one cop for every 166 Germans, and far ahead of the Gestapo’s ratio of 1:2000.
Would Trump use a juiced-up ICE to go after his political opponents? We’ll soon find out.
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