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Yahoo
a few seconds ago
- Yahoo
Trump's politically motivated sanctions against Brazil strain relations among old allies
SAO PAULO (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump has made clear who his new Latin America priority is: former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a personal and political ally. In doing so, he has damaged one of the Western hemisphere's most important and long-standing relationships, by levying 50% tariffs that begin to take effect Wednesday on the largest Latin America economy, sanctioning its main justice and bringing relations between the two countries to the lowest point in decades. The White House has appeared to embrace a narrative pushed by Bolsonaro allies in the U.S., that the former Brazilian president's prosecution for attempting to overturn his 2022 election loss is part of a 'deliberate breakdown in the rule of law,' with the government engaging in 'politically motivated intimidation' and committing 'human rights abuses,' according to Trump's statement announcing the tariffs. The message was clear earlier, when Donald Trump described Bolsonaro's prosecution by Brazil's Supreme Court as a 'witch hunt' — using the same phrase he has employed for the numerous investigations he has faced since his first term. Bolsonaro faces charges of orchestrating a coup attempt to stay in power after losing the 2022 election to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. A conviction could come in the next few months. The U.S. has a long history of meddling with the affairs of Latin American governments, but Trump's latest moves are unprecedented, said Steven Levitsky, a political scientist at Harvard University. 'This is a personalistic government that is adopting policies according to Trump's whims,' Levitsky said. Bolsonaro's sons, he noted, have close connections to Trump's inner circle. The argument has been bolstered by parallels between Bolsonaro's prosecution and the attempted prosecution of Trump for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, which ended when he won his second term last November. 'He's been convinced Bolsonaro is a kindred spirit suffering a similar witch hunt,' Levitsky said. Brazil's institutions hold firm against political pressure After Bolsonaro's defeat in 2022, Trump and his supporters echoed his baseless election fraud claims, treating him as a conservative icon and hosting him at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser, recently told Brazil's news website UOL that the U.S. would lift tariffs if Bolsonaro's prosecution were dropped. Meeting that demand, however, is impossible for several reasons. Brazilian officials have consistently emphasized that the judiciary is independent. The executive branch, which manages foreign relations, has no control over Supreme Court justices, who in turn have stated they won't yield to political pressure. On Monday, the court ordered that Bolsonaro be placed under house arrest for violating court orders by spreading messages on social media through his sons' accounts. Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversees the case against Bolsonaro, was sanctioned under the U.S. Magnitsky Act, which is supposed to target serious human rights offenders. De Moraes has argued that defendants were granted full due process and said he would ignore the sanctions and continue his work. 'The ask for Lula was undoable,' said Bruna Santos of the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington, D.C., about dropping the charges against Bolsonaro. 'In the long run, you are leaving a scar on the relationship between the two largest democracies in the hemisphere.' Magnitsky sanctions 'twist the law' Three key factors explain the souring of U.S.-Brazil ties in recent months, said Oliver Stuenkel, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: growing alignment between the far-right in both countries; Brazil's refusal to cave to tariff threats; and the country's lack of lobbying in Washington. Lawmaker Eduardo Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro's third son, has been a central figure linking Brazil's far-right with Trump's MAGA movement. He took a leave from Brazil's Congress and moved to the U.S. in March, but he has long cultivated ties in Trump's orbit. Eduardo openly called for Magnitsky sanctions against de Moraes and publicly thanked Trump after the 50% tariffs were announced in early July. Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, author of the Magnitsky Act, which allows the U.S. to sanction individual foreign officials who violate human rights, called the administration's actions 'horrible.' 'They make things up to protect someone who says nice things about Donald Trump,' McGovern told The Associated Press. Bolsonaro's son helps connect far right in US and Brazil Eduardo Bolsonaro's international campaign began immediately after his father's 2022 loss. Just days after the elections, he met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. As investigations against Bolsonaro and his allies deepened, the Brazilian far right adopted a narrative of judicial persecution and censorship, an echo of Trump and his allies who have claimed the U.S. justice system was weaponized against him. Brazil's Supreme Court and Electoral Court are among the world's strictest regulators of online discourse: they can order social media takedowns and arrests for spreading misinformation or other content it rules 'anti-democratic.' But until recently, few believed Eduardo's efforts to punish Brazil's justices would succeed. That began to change last year when billionaire Elon Musk clashed with de Moraes over censorship on X and threatened to defy court orders by pulling its legal representative from Brazil. In response, de Moraes suspended the social media platform from operating in the country for a month and threatened operations of another Musk company, Starlink. In the end, Musk blinked. Fábio de Sá e Silva, a professor of international and Brazilian studies at the University of Oklahoma, said Eduardo's influence became evident in May 2024, when he and other right-wing allies secured a hearing before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. 'It revealed clear coordination between Bolsonaro supporters and sectors of the U.S. Republican Party,' he said. 'It's a strategy to pressure Brazilian democracy from the outside.' A last-minute tariff push yields some wins Brazil has a diplomatic tradition of maintaining a low-key presence in Washington, Stuenkel said. That vacuum created an opportunity for Eduardo Bolsonaro to promote a distorted narrative about Brazil among Republicans and those closest to Trump. "Now Brazil is paying the price,' he said. After Trump announced sweeping tariffs in April, Brazil began negotiations. President Lula and Vice President Geraldo Alckmin — Brazil's lead trade negotiator — said they have held numerous meetings with U.S. trade officials since then. Lula and Trump have never spoken, and the Brazilian president has repeatedly said Washington ignored Brazil's efforts to negotiate ahead of the tariffs' implementation. Privately, diplomats say they felt the decisions were made inside the White House, within Trump's inner circle — a group they had no access to. A delegation of Brazilian senators traveled to Washington in the final week of July in a last-ditch effort to defuse tensions. The group, led by Senator Nelsinho Trad, met with business leaders with ties to Brazil and nine U.S. senators — only one of them Republican, Thom Tillis of North Carolina. 'We found views on Brazil were ideologically charged,' Trad told The AP. 'But we made an effort to present economic arguments.' While the delegation was in Washington, Trump signed the order imposing the 50% tariff. But there was relief: not all Brazilian imports would be hit. Exemptions included civil aircraft and parts, aluminum, tin, wood pulp, energy products and fertilizers. Trad believes Brazil's outreach may have helped soften the final terms. 'I think the path has to remain one of dialogue and reason so we can make progress on other fronts,' he said. ___ Associated Press writer Mauricio Savarese in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.
Yahoo
a few seconds ago
- Yahoo
California Republican moves to ban middecade redistricting wars
A California Republican is pushing a bill in Congress that would ban virtually all redistricting before 2030, a move that would kill President Donald Trump's effort to flip up to five Democratic seats in Texas and also efforts to retaliate by blue states like New York and California. Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., says he plans to introduce legislation on Tuesday that would bar middecade nationwide and nullify any new maps approved before the next census is carried out in 2030. 'This will also stop a damaging redistricting war from breaking out across the country,' Kiley said in a statement. Rep. Mike Lawler, R-New York, who represents a swingy Westchester County-based district, has said he will introduce a similar bill to ban all gerrymandering in all states. The seats represented by both Lawler and Kiley could be on the chopping block if Democrats to the Texas effort by gerrymandering their own congressional maps. 'Newsom is trying to subvert the will of voters and do lasting damage to democracy in California,' Kiley said. 'Fortunately, Congress has the ability to protect California voters.' Trump, who has pushed the Texas effort to flip Democratic seats in the 2026 midterms, showed no interest in any redistricting compromise Tuesday. 'I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats,' Trump told CNBC. GOP leaders in Congress, who would need to give the green light, haven't commented on the proposals by Kiley and Lawler. Although Kiley slammed Newsom, the most immediate impact of his legislation would be to nix the controversial Republican effort to rejigger Texas congressional map with the goal of changing the current 25-13 GOP edge to a 30-8 margin. The Lone Star State GOP has launched the effort after Trump demanded they find a way to give Republicans more seats in an effort to hold onto the House of Representatives in what is shaping up as a tricky political environment in 2026. Democratic state lawmakers fled the state Monday and for now have succeeded in denying a quorum for Republicans to move ahead. But most analysts believe the GOP can eventually muscle through its move in Texas. Republicans in other red states like Missouri, Florida, Ohio and Indiana are also considering similar efforts to nuke Democratic seats before 2026. But Democrats are considering responding with changes of their own. If Texas goes ahead with its redistricting plan, Newsom says he will push to redraw California's map to benefit Democrats. The Golden State's delegation is now split 43-9 in favor of Democrats but political insiders say it could easily be redrawn to give Democrats up to a 49-3 edge. Gov. Hochul is also vowing to fight fire with fire by redrawing New York's map to extend Democratic edge from the current 19-7 margin, although any such effort is unlikely to take effect in time for the 2026 vote.
Associated Press
2 minutes ago
- Associated Press
The Trump administration dismisses most on a federal board overseeing Puerto Rico's finances
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The Trump administration has dismissed five out of seven members on Puerto Rico's federal control board that oversees the U.S. territory's finances, sparking concern about the future of the island's fragile economy. The five fired are all Democrats. A White House official told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the board 'has been run inefficiently and ineffectively by its governing members for far too long and it's time to restore common sense leadership.' Those fired are board chairman Arthur Gonzalez, along with Cameron McKenzie, Betty Rosa, Juan Sabater and Luis Ubiñas. The board's two remaining members — Andrew G. Biggs and John E. Nixon — are Republicans. Sylvette Santiago, a spokesperson for the board, said none of those fired had received notifications ahead of their dismissal. The board was created in 2016 under the Obama administration, a year after Puerto Rico's government declared it was unable to pay its more than $70 billion public debt load and later filed for the biggest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history. In remarks to the AP, the White House official claimed the board had operated ineffectively and in secret and said it 'shelled out huge sums to law, consulting and lobbying firms.' The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the subject, also accused the board's staff of receiving 'exorbitant salaries.' The board spokesperson did not return a message seeking additional comment. Puerto Rico is struggling to restructure more than $9 billion in debt held by the state's Electric Power Authority, with officials holding bitter mediations with creditors demanding full payment. It's the only Puerto Rico government debt pending a restructuring, with the White House official accusing the board of preferring to 'extend the bankruptcy.' In February, the board's executive director, Robert Mujica Jr., said it was 'impossible' for Puerto Rico to pay the $8.5 billion that bondholders are demanding. He instead unveiled a new fiscal plan that proposed a $2.6 billion payment for creditors. The plan does not call for any rate increases for an island that has one of the highest power bills in any U.S. jurisdiction as chronic power outages persist, given the grid's weak infrastructure. Alvin Velázquez, a bankruptcy law professor at Indiana University, said he worries the dismissal of the board members could spark another crisis in Puerto Rico. 'This is really about getting a deal out of (the power company) that is not sustainable for the rate payers of Puerto Rico,' he said. Velázquez, former chair for the unsecured creditors committee during the bankruptcy proceedings, also questioned if the dismissals are legal, since board members can only be removed for just cause. 'What's the cause?' he said. 'What you're going to see is another instance in which the Trump administration is taking on and testing the courts.' The dismissals were first reported by the Breitbart News Network, a conservative news site.
