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Calling Bolsonaro Trial a 'Witch Hunt,' Trump Threatens Brazil With 50% Tariffs
"The reason why this is happening, not so subtly alluded to by Trump, is because Brazil actually held its right-wing coup leader accountable," said one critic.
Jul 09, 2025
After days of publicly railing against Brazil for the trial of its former leader, Jair Bolsonaro, U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened the South American country with a 50% tariff "on any and all Brazilian products sent into the United States."
Far-right Bolsonaro, sometimes called the "Trump of the Tropics," lost Brazil's 2022 presidential election to leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the recipient of the Wednesday letter that the U.S. president posted on his Truth Social network.
Bolsonaro is now facing a trial for alleged crimes, including an attempted coup d'état, following his reelection loss. The Brazilian's effort to cling to power was called "straight from Donald Trump's playbook," with critics worldwide pointing to the U.S. leader inciting the January 6, 2021 insurrection after his own electoral loss the previous November.
"This is a disgrace, just old-fashioned imperialism. A 50% tariff because Brazil's legal system has defended democracy."
In Truth Social posts on Monday and Tuesday, Trump blasted the trial as a "WITCH HUNT" and an "attack on a Political Opponent" while praising Bolsonaro as a "strong Leader, who truly loved his Country" and a "very tough negotiator on TRADE."
Echoing those posts, Trump wrote to Lula: "The way Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his Term, including by the United States, is an international disgrace. This Trial should not be taking place. It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!"
"Due in part to Brazil's insidious attacks on Free Elections, and the fundamental Free Speech Rights of Americans (as lately illustrated by the Brazilian Supreme Court, which has issued hundreds of SECRET and UNLAWFUL Censorship Orders to U.S. Social Media platforms, threatening them with Millions of Dollars in Fines and Eviction from the Brazilian Social Media market), starting on August 1, 2025, we will charge Brazil a Tariff of 50%," Trump continued.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, the Brazilian Supreme Court justice overseeing Bolsonaro's case, was also involved in a legal battle that temporarily shut down the social media platform X in Brazil. The network, formerly known as Twitter, is owned by estranged Trump ally Elon Musk, the richest man on Earth. The weekslong suspension of X last year stemmed from the company's refusal to comply with an order to deactivate dozens of accounts accused of spreading disinformation.
Both Trump and Elon have used their power and platforms to go after Brazil. When Musk did it last year I spoke with some Brazilian media experts and journalists who explained that Brazil actually takes online disinformation and threats to their democracy seriously www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcn...
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— Kat Tenbarge (@kattenbarge.bsky.social) July 9, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Trump claimed in his letter to Lula that "these Tariffs are necessary to correct the many years of Brazil's Tariff, and Non-Tariff, Policies and Trade Barriers, causing these unsustainable Trade Deficits against the United States. However, The Guardian noted, "the U.S. runs a trade surplus with Brazil, thanks in part to a free-trade agreement expanded in 2020, during Trump's first term."
The newspaper pointed to data on Brazil from the website of United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer:
U.S. total goods trade with Brazil were an estimated $92 billion in 2024. U.S. goods exports to Brazil in 2024 were $49.7 billion, up 11.3% ($5.0 billion) from 2023. U.S. goods imports from Brazil in 2024 totaled $42.3 billion, up 8.3% ($3.2 billion) from 2023. The U.S. goods trade surplus with Brazil was $7.4 billion in 2024, a 31.9% increase ($1.8 billion) over 2023.
Various journalists and other critics also highlighted the surplus. Michael Reid, a writer and visiting professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said on social media: "This is a disgrace, just old-fashioned imperialism. A 50% tariff because Brazil's legal system has defended democracy. And by the way, the U.S. has a trade surplus with Brazil."
Politico reported that "the overtly political tone of the letter is a break with more than a dozen other letters Trump has sent to foreign governments this week, threatening to impose new tariff rates on their exports to the U.S. beginning August 1."
While Trump's letter to Brazil has overtly political motivations, he also said during a Tuesday Cabinet meeting that he would target the entire BRICS economic group of emerging market nations, which began with Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, and now also includes Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates.
"If they're a member of BRICS, they are going to have to pay a 10% tariff, just for that one thing—and they won't be a member long," Trump said, according to CNN. "BRICS was set up to hurt us, BRICS was set up to degenerate our dollar and take our dollar, take it off as the standard."
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Screening of Student Visa Applicants' Social Media Denounced as Attack on Free Speech
One First Amendment expert warned the new Trump administration policy will "inevitably chill legitimate political speech both inside and outside the United States."
Jun 19, 2025
International students will once again be able to apply for U.S. visas following a cable sent Wednesday from the U.S. State Department to embassies and consulates—but not without being subjected to what one political scientist denounced "ideological purity tests" imposed by the Trump administration.
Nearly a month after Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the agency was pausing all student visa interviews amid the Trump administration's sweeping push to rid American universities of foreign students who have publicly supported Palestinian rights—as well as Chinese students and those accused of having ties to the Chinese Communist Party—the State Department said applications will once again be accepted, but scholars' social media use will be rigorously reviewed for signs of "hostility" toward the United States.
Applicants for F academic visas, M visas for vocational students, and J visas for educational and cultural exchanges will be required at their visa interviews to make all of their social media accounts accessible to consular officers who conduct their interviews, so officers can search for "any indications of hostility towards the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States."
Both new and returning student visas applicants will be subject to the new screenings, and consular officers were instructed in the cable to take "detailed case notes" about students' online presence.
"Take screenshots to preserve the record against possible later alteration or loss of the information," read the cable.
"This new State Department policy is a digital-age version of a policy that history has already discredited."
Students who are found to "demonstrate a history of political activism" will be flagged under the new social media guidelines, and consular officers are being directed to "consider the likelihood they would continue such activity in the United States."
Sarah Spreitzer, vice president of the American Council on Education, told The New York Times that the organization is "very worried that this is going to be some political litmus test that's going to be applied to students."
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said the new policy will "inevitably chill legitimate political speech both inside and outside the United States."
"This policy makes a censor of every consular officer," added Jaffer.
The new screening procedures followed the Trump administration's detention of and efforts to deport several foreign students who publicly expressed support for Palestinian rights, including Columbia University organizers Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, Tufts University student and op-ed author Rümeysa Öztürk, and Georgetown University academic Badar Khan Suri. The latter three scholars have been released from detention in recent weeks after court rulings, but Khalil remains imprisoned in Louisiana. A judge in New Jersey determined last month that his detention is "likely" unconstitutional and ruled last week that the Trump administration cannot detain or deport Khalil, who has not been charged with a crime, but he has yet to be released.
The State Department cable instructed embassies and consulates to flag any social media activity that displayed "advocacy for, aid, or support for foreign terrorists and other threats to U.S. national security" and "support for unlawful antisemitic harassment or violence."
The communication did not detail how officials should determine what online comments or activity would qualify. Trump administration officials have openly conflated students' involvement in protests against Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Palestinians in Gaza with antisemitic, pro-terrorist activity.
The cable also contained a threat to student visa applicants if portions of their social media accounts remain "set to private" during their interviews.
In those cases, the directive says, "you should treat the case as any other where an applicant fails to provide certain information on request."
A bolded sentence added, "You must consider whether such failure reflects evasiveness or otherwise calls into question the applicant's credibility."
Jaffer noted that "some of the 20th century's most significant artistic and intellectual figures, including Pablo Neruda, Doris Lessing, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Graham Greene," were barred from entering the U.S. due to their ties to the Communist Party, after "ideological vetting" by U.S. officials.
"This new State Department policy," said Jaffer, "is a digital-age version of a policy that history has already discredited."
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Imagine a World Without Your iPhone—I Dare You
Will turning off our smart phones—even for a few minutes or (gasp!) hours per day—make the future any different or better? We won't know unless we try.
Jun 08, 2025
Recently, I’ve been turning off my iPhone — all the way off! — for 10 to 30 minutes at a time. I leave it somewhere in the house, while I try to live IRL (“in real life”), washing dishes, hanging up laundry, or even going for a walk, phoneless.
In this hyper-connected world of ours, doing so, even for such a short time, often feels like an enormous act of self-deprivation — no podcasts, no long-distance communication with those I’m closest to, no social media, no para-social relationships, no steps of mine being counted, or micro-health-tracking going on. So much, in other words, missing in action. I’m not a digital native. In fact, I am what they call a late adopter. I didn’t get a cell phone until the fall of 2003. So I remember when it was normal to go about your business without a powerful computer attached to your person. Even with that perspective — recalling the not-so-long-agos of answering machines and public phones with grubby buttons and Internet cafes — I feel unsettled when I’m untethered from my digital leash and experiencing what might pass for freedom, even for a few minutes.
But as unsettling as it is, I also want to start new patterns. Lawyer friends tell me that activists often turn their phones off for the first (and maybe only) time as they commit acts of political property destruction. It’s almost a rite of passage for the newly politicized, and it’s as incriminating as the massive data trails that other activists might leave.
Did you hear about the Tesla saboteur? Home from college in Boston for spring break, the 19-year-old wanted to express his rage at billionaire Elon Musk’s government takeover. He went to a Kansas City Tesla dealership in the middle of the night and used a homemade Molotov cocktail to set a Cybertruck on fire. The fire spread, destroying charging stations and setting a second truck aflame, causing more than $200,000 in damage. He was caught in the act — at least in data terms. The cameras at Tesla (and inside Tesla vehicles themselves) pinpointed the time of the property destruction, while images of someone who looked like him were caught on multiple cameras in the vicinity.
As for new patterns, turning off my cellphone for a period of time every day means a small window of datalessness that offers a twenty-first-century version of rebellion. It dams up the stream of free data that flows from my device with every tap-tap and swipe. By doing so, I create a tiny space for surprise, for rebellion, for precious secrecy.
I don’t have any plans to sabotage a Tesla showroom, nor am I in a current conspiracy with anyone trying to stop a shipment of U.S. weapons to the Israeli Defense Forces for its genocidal campaign against Gaza. I’m not trying to organize a workers’ strike at my kids’ school or local grocery store. To my shame, I’m not actively planning any of these actions. For those who don’t want to make rookie activist data mistakes, the Internet (and here’s a nod toward the irony) is full of crash courses on security culture and avoiding self-incrimination or entrapment through careless reliance on tech.
As I power down that ubiquitous device, I remind myself of my own power, too. Yes, I still know how to get places without a map app. I know the answers to the random trivia that comes into my mind any day. (Who sang that song? Who was president in 1954?) Or I can live with the not-knowing. Amazingly enough, I’ve discovered that I still know how to live in my own mind alone, without being distracted or entertained by a podcast. I’ve realized that just because I have the urge to reach out to so-and-so, it doesn’t actually mean that it has to happen that very second. It’s bracing and helpful to remember I can live without this device.
Dehumanizing Technology?
I’m well aware of the research on how bad the online world can be for anyone, especially young people. And believe it or not, my kids — 11 and 12 — still don’t have cellphones and don’t live online. They don’t play video games on and off all day long or have access to their own devices at home. But that doesn’t mean that they’re living some Montessori or Waldorf fantasy of Luddite delight. I kind of wish they were. But that life is for a much higher income bracket than mine. It’s worth noting that many in the tech world take great pains to shield their children from this technology. Every other kid on my daughter’s bus undoubtedly has a phone and I’m sure she’s craning to look over someone’s shoulder whenever she can. My son’s friends all have phones — no surprise in this world of ours — and play video games regularly. He’s a little left out of the chatter about this or that gaming platform, but I’m not giving in just so he can fit into a culture that I don’t think is all that healthy to begin with.
As a parent, I think a lot about the kind of world I’m preparing my kids for. And I guess there’s an argument to be made for preparing them for a world lived largely online, since that’s where we are these days. But I’m going to try and hold the line and reject that very world as much as humanly possible. (Humanly indeed!)
I want my kids running, swimming, noticing the world around them, creating art, hearing bird songs and cries of warning, reading good books (or even not-so-great ones) — almost anything but playing video games and diving into the deep end of a cyber-cesspool of bullying, eating disorders, and a fixation on looks.
I read about the connections between video games and war fighting today and in the future. And it’s strange (at least to me) to imagine war as a video game and the degradation that goes with it. After all, dehumanization is the name of the grisly game these days for the Israeli Defense Forces. Soldiers are taught that the Palestinian people — even children — are less than fully human. Technology may not make them feel that way, but it certainly does make it easier to execute orders involving collective punishment, total surveillance, technological harassment, and ethnic cleansing.
Spending Time with Jennifer Lopez
On Wednesdays, my kids walk to the library, where they can log onto public computers and watch unboxing videos or tutorials on contouring (whatever that may be!). And then they have to walk home in time for dinner. It’s a little over a mile round trip, and I figure it’s a good trade-off. I tell them that they can have a smartphone when they can pay for it themselves, but in my dreams what I’d really like would be a communications device that, in order to use, they had to power with a bicycle or a hand crank. I would want it to feel like work. Because it’s not a value-neutral object and the network it relies on is not value-neutral either. At every juncture, this technology that we take for granted has a high labor, material, and environmental cost.
My daughter Madeline is 11. I notice her putting ever more attention into her appearance, primping and carefully considering her outfits. Still, she smiles when she looks in the mirror, delighting in her strong sense of style and dancing to the beat of her own drummer. Her once-a-week plunge into YouTube hasn’t dissipated her sense of self the way daily (hourly?) immersion would. She plays softball, runs at recess, and has a healthy appetite. She isn’t isolated from the world, and she and I talk about body image, aging, and the way old-fashioned media, social media, and AI create impossible standards for women.
Recently, we watched an ad featuring the multi-hyphenate Jennifer Lopez who, at the age of 55, is acting, singing, dancing, and representing high-end brands like a full-time mogul model. “Gosh, Mom. I can’t believe she is older than you,” Madeline said with the unalloyed frankness of the young. She didn’t have to mention my wrinkles and rolls and masses of white hair. It was all implied in her incredulous tone.
“Well, my Love, it’s not my job to look a certain way,” I replied.
Jennifer Lopez is, of course, a knockout. I have loved her since Out of Sight and Jenny From the Block. As a public figure and a professional beauty, she’s in a position to maintain her looks, no matter what the cost. She undoubtedly spares no expense when it comes to trainers, treatments, makeup, and clothes to keep that look (or at least something close to it), and then computers and lighting do the rest.
Believe me, it’s good to have these conversations with my kid, to have her understand the effort and cost that go into looking like Jennifer Lopez, or any other celebrity. As I pointed out to Madeline, I don’t have a deal with a face-cream company or a clothing line or a perfume outfit or some kind of alcohol company that requires me to devote myself to my persona. And in her own fashion, she heard me.
As I reflect now, I realize that, without such conversations, she might think she’s supposed to look that way, too, and that there’s something wrong with her if she doesn’t. That degraded sense of self is easy pickings for our consumerist culture which sends unrelenting messages that this or that product will fill the hole.
Making the Future Different?
All my yellow thumbs up, all my mindless clicks and swipes, the time traps I fall into — full disclosure: it’s videos of thrifters on the hunt for deals and the posts of the hauls they buy to resell that grab me every time! That’s my weak spot. But every minute online is captured in a huge data profile of ME that I can’t contest or contrive or unravel. But I can turn away. Turn off the iPhone. Turn away from the screen. Disconnect the stream of data. This pervasive technology and its promises of ease and a frictionless existence are a downright lie. After all, the same technological framework powers DoorDash and the weaponized drones that are now raining terror down on children just like mine in Gaza.
I live far enough away from Gaza (in so many senses) that I could mindlessly embrace DoorDash while rejecting killer drones. But now that I’ve made the connection, I can’t un-make it. So I am going to say as big a NO as possible to both.
As the world gets more networked and more automated, the basic knowledge of how to survive in it gets lost, commodified, or controlled. How to find and purify water, how to grow and prepare food — lost! The “cloud” won’t bring rain to end drought conditions. The Internet is not going to feed us in a supply chain collapse. These are the things that keep me up at night, so without freaking out too much, my kids and I work on life skills together. Eye contact, stamina for walking, tolerance of discomfort, strategic decision-making, map-reading, determining threat levels, and assessing someone’s trustworthiness. These are all skills that will help my kids in a distinctly precarious future.
A few years ago, an artist named Simon Weckert borrowed a few dozen iPhones from friends, put them in a red wagon and took a walk through the streets of Berlin. With just an hour or so of lag time, Google Maps showed all the streets and roads he had walked on bottlenecked in traffic jams. Video of his mobile art piece shows him strolling down the center of empty roads. It’s absorbing to watch that video, a split screen of him in a yellow jacket with the jaunty gait of a wagon puller and those red-lined Google Maps. Weckert’s performance demonstrates how our sense of reality is mediated by, filtered through, and dependent on a technology we simply don’t fully grasp or understand.
What we see isn’t what is real. In these dystopian Trumpy days, deep in our bones, we know that. Trump rants about White genocide and radical-left judicial monsters and tweets out AI-constructed images of himself as the Pope, a Jedi master, a golden statue in a renovated Gaza resort. What we see isn’t what’s real. And yes, I am in awe of it. I am afraid of it. I know it cannot feed me. I know it is trying to cleave my attention from the question of how we survive this violent present and make a different and far better future.
Peter Maurin, who co-founded the Catholic Worker movement with Dorothy Day, was fond of saying that we make the future different by making the present different.
So, I am turning my iPhone off. It makes my present different. Will it make the future any different?
It won’t hurt to try!
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