<
https://www.gzeromedia.com/news/analysis/why-trumps-tariffs-on-brazil-will-backfire>
"US-Brazil relations have been heating up for a bit, but President Donald Trump
ratcheted up the temperature on the Lula administration a week ago when he
announced that the United States would slap a 50% tariff on all Brazilian
imports effective Aug 1. Trump is lashing out against South America’s largest
economy with the steepest penalty yet, not over trade – Washington actually
runs a surplus with Brasília, which is why the country initially faced only the
10% baseline announced on April 2 – but in retaliation for the ongoing trial of
former president Jair Bolsonaro and recent court decisions regulating (mostly
American) social media giants.
The president of the United States is overtly meddling in Brazil’s domestic
politics. It's hard for Americans to even imagine that another country would
dare threaten to tank the Dow unless the Supreme Court overturned a ruling or
Congress repealed a law. Democrats and Republicans alike would howl if China
tried to do that. Yet that's exactly what President Trump is doing to Brazil:
flexing economic muscle to dictate the internal policies of a sovereign nation
(and a democratic one, to boot). So much for his promise not to lecture other
countries on how to govern their affairs (he should’ve clarified:
as long as
their leaders earn, or buy, his personal favor).
It’s a corrupt (ab)use of executive power. The Trump administration has
articulated a number of shifting and often contradictory aims to justify its
tariffs: shrinking bilateral trade deficits, raising revenue, reshoring supply
chains, creating manufacturing jobs, squeezing China, wringing better deals.
It’s certainly the case that some of these goals make less sense than others,
tariffs aren’t always the right tool for the job, policy execution has been
sloppy (remember the formula?), and Trump’s negotiation skills haven’t been up
to snuff. But at least most of the tariffs have been guided by Trump’s sense of
the national interest. They accordingly amount to legitimate statecraft. Not so
with the Brazil tariff, which the president’s letter justifies purely on
political grounds. There’s no national‑interest fig leaf – just an open bid to
help a political opposition leader he likes.
It's also plainly illegal. Since “Liberation Day,” the White House has
invoked a bunch of statutory authorities to unilaterally levy tariffs without
Congressional legislation, most notably the
International Emergency Economic
Powers Act (IEEPA). Usage of this law rests on the notion that the tariffs are
a remedy for a “national economic emergency.” The US Supreme Court has yet to
rule on the legality of IEEPA tariffs; it will probably do so in the fall, when
I expect it to curb the president’s authority. But whatever the justices
decide, we already know that the president doesn't have the legal authority to
impose a tariff solely because he disagrees with the target’s domestic
politics."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
