A few months ago, Marine Le Pen, a prominent far-right politician in France, was caught up in an embezzlement scheme involving E.U. funds, and a French judicial panel examined the evidence and agreed to ban Le Pen from ever seeking elected office again. Donald Trump threw an online tantrum and condemned the case against her as a “witch hunt,” but the French ignored him and the American president quietly moved on.
Last month, the Republican did it again, condemning corruption allegations against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as another “witch hunt,” but Trump did little more than whine.
When it comes to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, however, the incumbent American president is apparently not content to simply pound the table. As my MSNBC colleague Hayes Brown summarized:
President Donald Trump sent his Brazilian counterpart a stunning letter Wednesday, informing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that his country would face a new 50% tariff ‘due in part to … the way Brazil has treated’ former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump political ally. Trump blamed the massive spike in tariffs partly on ‘Brazil’s insidious attacks on Free Elections, and the fundamental Free Speech Rights of Americans.’
To briefly recap, voters in Brazil overlooked Bolsonaro’s scandal-plagued record in 2018 and elected him president. Four years later, he narrowly lost his bid for a second term and allegedly plotted what was effectively a coup that would’ve allowed him to remain in power despite his election defeat.
Yes, these circumstances might sound familiar.
Bolsonaro wants to return to power in South America’s largest country, but he’s currently facing criminal charges for allegedly trying to illegally overturn the results of his 2022 loss.
Trump, a close ally of the former Brazilian leader (Bolsonaro has been described by many as “the Trump of the Tropics”), has done what he always does: The Republican has called the allegations a “witch hunt” and demanded that the charges against the former president be dropped.
But unlike the French and Israeli examples, Trump is also using tariffs as part of a clumsy scheme to help his Brazilian pal, sending an unhinged and ridiculously written letter to the country’s actual president, scolding the foreign government, and connecting the case against Bolsonaro to U.S. trade policy.
What’s wrong with that? Quite a bit, actually.
1. Trump appears to have forgotten about the legal basis of his trade agenda: According to the White House, the president can unilaterally impose arbitrary tariffs on U.S. trade partners because he’s declared an economic emergency resulting from trade deficits. The trouble in this instance, however, is that the United States has a trade surplus with Brazil, adding a legally dubious twist to the Republican’s radical gambit.
2. This is a diplomatic fiasco of historic proportions: There is no precedent for a U.S. administration trying to leverage trade policy to derail a criminal case in a sovereign nation.
On the Netanyahu matter, a recent Axios report noted, “Trump’s comments in a post on his Truth Social account were an unprecedented intervention by a U.S. president in a legal proceeding in another democratic ally.” But that was just rhetoric; with Brazil, he’s imposing actual economic penalties. 3. Trump’s move will hurt consumers in his own country: Hillary Clinton summarized the problem nicely: “You’re about to pay more for beef not just because Trump wants to protect his corrupt friend, but also because Republicans in Congress have decided to cede their power over trade policy to him.” It might sound outlandish to argue that an American president would punish American consumers because he hopes to shield an attempted coup leader from legal accountability, but that’s pretty much what’s happening here. 4. This sure does look like another power grab: Paul Krugman argued, “If we still had a functioning democracy, this Brazil gambit would by itself be grounds for impeachment.” That’s not as outlandish as it might seem: Trump is trying to exercise a power he doesn’t have, in pursuit of unjust ends, despite the Constitution giving Congress authority over international trade policy. 5. Trump is turning U.S. values on their head: There is some precedent for a U.S. administration using tariffs in pursuit of political goals, but those earlier cases, we were trying to lean on foreign governments to be more just, not less. Trump has the whole model backwards. Hayes concluded, “[T]he decision to use tariffs as a cudgel to bring Brazil to heel for following its own laws marks a distinct shift in Trump’s willingness to engage in economic warfare for his own personal interests.” If someone is prepared to offer a defense for such a move, I’m eager to hear it.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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