Five Things About Trump/Trumpism and Herr Donald's Attempt to Use Tariff Powers to Cancel the Prosecution of "The Trump of the Tropics"

My friends, I and others have been saying for some time the following 5 things about Donald Trump and his lethal second presidency.

+1. On top of being a virulent fascist, Trump is a deranged malignant narcissist maniac without any serious boundaries of normal human conduct and basic decency.

+2. Trump is a pathological liar who constantly makes shit up to fit his fascist and narcissist insanity and delude his cult followers.

+3. The claim of MAGA Trumpists and some asinine Trumpenlefties that Trump is an anti-imperial isolationist is total nonsense.

+4. Trump’s ridiculous and economically dysfunctional tariffs aren’t and never have been about any serious economic reasoning. They are fundamentally political, authoritarian, and narcissist. They are about Trump trying to use the United States’ unmatched purchasing power to make nations and companies (including US-based corporations) come to him on bended knee in the hope that he will roll back and carve out exemptions to his political market threats. He has tried to use his big tariff stick to compel Canada to become America’s 51^st state, for example. The fact that Trump’s trade war actually harms American manufacturing, workers, and consumers (by undermining global supply chains and raising the price of goods in the US) is beside the point. Trump’s tariff mongering is also about rolling back the US federal legislative branch’s power. He has used the fake national “emergency” of the United States’ trade deficit to try to justify abrogating Congress’ constitutional tariff authority.

+5. Despite its core appeal to ultra-nationalism, contemporary fascism, like its classic interwar 20th century and 1940s European predecessors has a strong international dimension including planning and solidarity between fascists in different countries.

Below I will dig into how each of these five things is concentrated in Trump’s recent threat to drastically increase tariffs on imports from Brazil (by 50%) if that nation’s Supreme Court doesn’t cancel the trial of that nation’s former president Jair Bolsonaro.

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But first some background.

Who, you ask, is Jair Bolsonaro? Once labelled “the Trump of the Tropics,” he was the racist, sexist, gay-bashing, arch-ecocidal and neofascist president of Brazil between 2019 and 2023. He was and remains an open fan and friend of Trump. On January 8^th of 2023, following his defeat in the October 2022 Brazilian general election and the inauguration of his successor Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, thousands of Bolsonaro's thuggish supporters attacked Brazil's federal government buildings in the capital, Brasília.

“During and after [the 2022] election,” Wikipedia ably reports, with abundant documentation:

“a network of members of former president Jair Bolsonaro's government and of the Brazilian Armed Forces planned to subvert the transition of power to newly elected president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, arrest Supreme Federal Court (STF) justice Alexandre de Moraes and President of the Federal Senate Rodrigo Pacheco, as well as shut down several government institutions, such as the National Congress, the Superior Electoral Court and the Supreme Federal Court, in an attempt to keep Jair Bolsonaro in power and possibly consolidate his control over the federal government. The plans, evidence, and individuals involved in planning a coup d'état were gradually revealed in investigations conducted by public agencies and the press in 2023 and 2024. ..Bolsonaro has denied any wrongdoing and says he ‘suffer[s] relentless persecution.’ After Bolsonaro supporters stormed the Congress and Supreme Court on 8 January 2023, more than 1,400 people were charged for their alleged role in the riots. Valdemar Costa Neto, head of the Liberal Party, and three aides to Bolsonaro were arrested on 8 February 2024.”

Trump did January 6, 2021. “The Trump of the Tropics” (the ToTT) did January 8, 2023. The first and real American Trump has escaped trial for his attempted coup. The ToTT has not and is now trembling in fear over possibly facing the fate that should have befallen the fascist felon Donald “Take Down the Metal Detectors” Trump: life in prison for trying to overthrow previously normative democracy and rule of law.

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Okay, so now let’s dig into how Trump’s tariff threat against Brazil hits each of my five points above.

1. No Decent Boundaries and Malignant Narcissism

A letter from one head of state (the fascist lunatic Trump) to another (the Brazilian social democrat da Silva) saying that the first head of state’s government will hit the second head of state’s country with giant tariffs unless the second country stops prosecuting a fascist monster who tried to cancel an election and stage a coup in that country is…insane , inappropriate, and bizarre. Lula da Silva told the people of Brazil that he couldn’t believe his eyes when he read the letter from Trump. He thought it had to be “a fake.”

Note the pathetic reference back to self in Trump’s recent online post on the supposed persecution of the Trump of the Tropics: “This is nothing more, or less, than an attack on a Political Opponent — Something I know much about!” President Trump posted online Monday. “It happened to me, times 10.”

2. Liar

In his weird AF letter to Lula da Silva, Trump said that two things that are completely false:

· The United States has a trade deficit with Brazil.

The opposite is true. Putting aside for now Trump’s childish notion that any country that runs a trade surplus with the US is “ripping off America,” the US actually has a trade surplus with Brazil.

· “The way that 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.”

No: the ToTT (Bolsonaro) was never “a highly respected leader around the world.” He was and is generally considered to be an ecocidal maniac and arch-authoritarian neofascist who worked tear down “the lungs of the planet” – the Amazonian rain forest – in alignment with the climate-collapsing agro-industrial complex have been “highly respected” across humanity. There is zero human outrage outside select fascist and ecocidal circles over the ToTT being tried for trying to stage a coup and consolidated fascist power in the Western hemisphere’s second largest county.

3. Trump an Anti-Imperial Isolationist? Seriously?

Trump has illegally bombed Iran while threatening more “tragedy” to come there. He has vowed to seize Greenland, stated his goal of seizing the Panama Canal, and threatened to annex Canada while invoking “Manifest Destiny,” the 19^th Century notion that America is divinely ordained to control all of North America. Now he is using trade policy to try to dictate the outcome of the criminal trial of a former Brazilian president who is being prosecuted for trying to overthrow democracy and the rule of law in Brazil – an open and unabashed imperial assault on Brazil’s national sovereignty, explicit attempted interference in Brazil’s internal political and legal affairs.

Trump’s tariff threat against Brazil is “the interference of one country in the sovereignty of another,” Lula said on Brazilian television last night. “And, more seriously, the interference of a president of one country in the judiciary of my country.”

“I love it,” the top Trumpist and global fascist strategist Steve Bannon told The New York Times yesterday. Brazil’s way out of the crisis is simple: “If you drop the trial and drop the charges, the tariffs go away.” But isn’t that “extortion,” the Times asked? “It’s MAGA, baby,” Bannon responded: “It’s a brave new world.”

4. Trump’s Tariff/Trade War Really About Fascist Politics, Not Rational US Capitalist Economics

Here I’ll add three things to what I’ve already written here: (i) Brazil under Lula da Silva will meet Trump’s tariffs with reciprocal steep duties that will reduce US exports to Brazil; (ii) Trump’s tariffs are taxes on US consumers and will therefore fuel further inflation in the US; (iii) the price of coffee – a key Brazilian export of great significance to this writer – is already moving up in the coffee-addicted US.

And by the way: if you really want to turn me into a dedicated revolutionary, make coffee unaffordable!

5. International Fascism

It might seem odd that there’s an internationalism to fascism since fascism is all about ultra-nationalism. But in fact fascists coordinate and strategize across national boundaries all the time. They have in the past and they do today, sharing lessons and strategies between and among neo-fascist movements, parties, and governments around and across the world. Thus, for example, Trump’s psycho-fascist Vice President Herr Vance has campaigned for a neo-Nazi party in Germany. American Republi-fascists have held conferences in neo-fascist Hungary. he leading Trumpist-fascist Bannon has hobnobbed with like-minded racist, sexist, nativist, and eco-cidal authoritarians in France, Hungary, Italy and Germany, and the world over. Someone could and perhaps should write a quick book on this very topic.

The norm-smashing fascist maniac Trump weighing in on behalf of his fossil fascist comrade Bolsonaro, the ToTT, is consistent with the pattern.