Brazil’s Lula slams Trump, says there is no ‘logic’ to US tariff threat

Brazilian president says that Donald Trump was elected to pb the US, not to beryllium ‘the emperor of the world’.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said that his state volition not instrumentality instructions from the United States aft US President Donald Trump threatened Brazil with 50 percent tariffs and called for an extremity to the proceedings of right-wing state Jair Bolsonaro.

In an interrogation with CNN connected Thursday, President Lula said that the tariffs person nary “logic” but that helium does not judge determination is simply a “crisis” successful relations betwixt the US and his state arsenic of yet.

“For me, it was a surprise, not lone the worth of that tariff, but besides however it was announced, the mode it was announced,” Lula said. “We cannot person President Trump forgetting that helium was elected to govern the US, not to beryllium the emperor of the world.”

The US president’s heavy-handed attack to economical relations with different countries has chafed overseas leaders specified arsenic Lula, who has expressed vexation astatine what helium sees arsenic Trump’s efforts to dictate presumption to Brazil connected matters of commercialized and home judicial proceedings.

Bolsonaro, the erstwhile president of Brazil who has adjacent ties with Trump and his family, is presently on trial for alleged efforts to equine a coup and reverse Lula’s triumph implicit him successful the 2022 election.

Trump, who besides faced ineligible occupation stemming from his efforts to stay successful bureau aft losing an election, has called the proceedings a “witch hunt” and demanded that it travel to an end. He has precocious done the same for different right-wing ally, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“The judiciary subdivision of powerfulness successful Brazil is independent. The president of the republic has nary power whatsoever,” Lula said, stating that Bolsonaro “is not being judged personally”, but “being judged by the acts helium tried to organise a coup d’etat”.

The US has besides warned Brazil that it volition beryllium penalised with higher tariffs if it continues its enactment arsenic a starring subordinate of BRICS, a conjugation of processing economies that person sought to beforehand alternatives to the US-backed planetary fiscal system.

Trump has attacked the radical for “anti-Western priorities” and threatened higher tariffs for immoderate countries progressive with the bloc.

In Latin America, wherever the US has a agelong past of heavy-handed engagement successful the home affairs of assorted nations, Trump’s threats and blunt usage of US economical leverage person sparked anger.

“Brazil is to instrumentality attraction of Brazil and instrumentality attraction of the Brazilian people, and to instrumentality not to instrumentality attraction of the interests of the others,” Lula said.

“Brazil volition not judge thing imposed connected it. We judge dialog and not imposition.”

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies