Modi and Lula discuss Trump's tariffs amid strained trade relations with US

(As expected, Trump's ridiculous tariff plan (raise more taxes from the American people to cover costs of giving trillions to Big Business and billionaires) is only succeeding in 1. making our economy scream and 2. driving other nations closer together in trade and their hatred of us. Promises made, promises kept.) 

from PressTV

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have spoken by phone regarding various issues, including the tariffs recently imposed by the United States on goods from both nations.

Lula confirmed a state visit to India in early 2026 during the call on Thursday, a day after the Brazilian leader told Reuters news agency he would initiate a conversation among the BRICS group of countries on addressing US President Donald Trump's tariff measures.

The group of major emerging economies also includes China, Russia and South Africa.

Lula's office confirmed that in the call, both leaders discussed the international economic situation and the unilateral tariffs affecting Brazil and India, which are among the nations most impacted by Trump's actions.

Trump recently imposed a 25% tariff on Indian goods, raising the total tariff to 50%, alleging that India continues to purchase Russian oil.

He also imposed similar tariffs on Brazil, affecting sectors including aircraft, energy, and orange juice.

During the conversation, Modi and Lula reiterated their goal of increasing bilateral trade to over $20 billion annually by 2030, up from approximately $12 billion last year.

They also agreed to enhance the scope of their preferential trade agreement and discussed virtual payment platforms to facilitate trade...

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Brazilians Rally Around Lula After Trump Tariff Threat

from Common Dreams

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva may have gotten a political boost thanks to the intervention of U.S. President Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, Trump announced he was slapping all Brazilian imports with a 50% tariff to protest the criminal trial of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, a longtime Trump ally who was indicted on charges related to an alleged coup plot to illegally remain in power after he lost the 2022 general election.

However, it does not appear that Trump's intervention into Brazil's domestic politics is helping Bolsonaro in the court of public opinion and Brazilian publication Globo reports that Brazilians have been swarming the U.S. president's Instagram account and leaving messages telling him to "leave Brazil in peace" while insisting their country is "not a lawless land."

In an analysis piece published by the São Paulo-based Folha, journalist Igor Gielow declared that Bolsonaro was an "immediate loser" of Trump's decision, as in the past he has declared Trump to be his political idol and the two are generally seen as joined at the hip. What's more, Gielow argues that the Trump tariffs are most likely to hurt Brazil's agribusiness sector, which is where the core of Bolsonaro's political support lies...

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Musk wants to sow dissent against democratically-elected president of Brazil: Journalist

from PressTV

The feud between American tech mogul Elon Musk and the Brazilian government is due to Musk’s close links with the US Republican Party is opposed to the government of Lula da Silva, says a Brazilian journalist.

In an interview with the Press TV website, Lucas Leiroz, a Brazilian journalist and political analyst, said the owner of X has made a series of attacks on the Brazilian president and Alexandre de Moraes, an influential jurist who heads the Supreme Electoral Court in the South American country.

In recent months, Musk repeatedly attacked Moraes, labeling him a dictator.

On Friday, the judge ordered the full and immediate suspension of X, formerly known as Twitter, over the social media platform’s role in disseminating disinformation in South America’s largest country.

He said the ban will remain in force until all related court orders are complied with, including the payment of fines amounting to 18.5 million reais ($3.28 million) and the nomination of a legal representative in Brazil.

"We have a right to defend fundamental rights. Those who violate democracy, who violate fundamental human rights, whether in person or through social media, must be held accountable," he said in a speech on Friday.

Leiroz said there is a narrative that platform X owned by Musk is dominated by “extremist groups” who spread “hate speech” on the internet and censor content related to Palestine...

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Brazil’s president withdraws his country’s ambassador to Israel after criticizing the war in Gaza

from the AP

Brazil withdrew its ambassador to Israel on Wednesday after months of tensions between the two countries over the war in Gaza, the latest repercussion from a South American nation over Israel’s military campaign in the Palestinian territory.

The move was announced in Brazil’s official gazette.

Israel’s foreign ministry said no official message has yet been received from the Brazilian government on the matter. However, following the media reports, the Brazilian chargé d’affaires was summoned to appear at the ministry on Thursday for a meeting.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been a frequent critic of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which he compared to the Holocaust earlier this year. That led Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz to summon the Brazilian ambassador, Frederico Meyer, to the national Holocaust museum in Jerusalem for a public reprimand...

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Understanding Lula: Compromise is Not Compromised

The question of what Lula da Silva is doing right now is a rather nuanced one. He has a history of getting involved in world affairs and setting himself up to try to negotiate ends to conflicts. This appears to be what he is doing now with Ukraine and Russia. Let's take a closer look so we can better understand whether he is compromising in order to gain credible neutrality in the effort or whether he is just plain compromised. 

More Info on What Lula Has Been Doing Since Taking Office

For your edification.

Why Greenwald Promotes Regime Change Disinfo Targeting Brazil

Lula does not support sanctions against Russia. Lula is opening up trade deals with China. Lula wont send weapons and munitions to Ukraine. And oh yeah, Lula is setting up Latin American common currency to use for trade to get off US dollar. Same thing Gaddafi did.

On Narratives, Electronic Voting Machines, Paul Pelosi and Brazil

Yet another video I don't dare post on Youtube.

'A Brutal Violation of Press Freedom': Glenn Greenwald Targeted With Investigation by Brazilian Government After Reporting on Corruption

from Common Dreams

The Brazilian government is targeting one of its biggest critics, journalist Glenn Greenwald, in a move that has been decried by observers as an intimidation tactic designed to stifle opposition to right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro.

The government's finance ministry's money laundering unit was asked by federal police to investigate Greenwald's finances, O Antagonista reported Tuesday. The right-wing Brazilian news site said that the investigation would focus on whether Greenwald paid for access to leaked records he used in reporting on the Bolsonaro government's "Operation Car Wash" sting...

Greenwald, co-founder of independent news organization The Intercept, published in the online magazine's Brazilian edition a number of investigations that use leaked documents to prove that the prosecution of former President Lula da Silva for corruption was steered by now Justice Minister Sergio Moro. The reporting has impacted Brazil's politics and thrown the Bolsonaro presidency into crisis...

"Criminally investigating journalist Glenn Greenwald for reporting on corruption within the Bolsonaro government is a shocking violation of his rights as a reporter," Timm said. "Worse, the same person who is the primary subject of The Intercept's reporting—Minister of Justice Sergio Moro—would also have ultimate authority over any Federal Police investigation."..

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Privatization is at the Core of Fascism

by Eric Zuesse, Off-Guardian

The first group of privatizations occurred in the first fascist nation, Italy, in the 1920s; and the second group of privatizations occurred in the second fascist nation, Germany, in the 1930s. Privatizations started under Mussolini, and then were instituted under Hitler. That got the fascist ball rolling; and, after a few decades of hiatus in the wake of fascism’s embarrassing supposed defeat in WW II, it resurfaced and then surged yet again after 1970, when fascist forces in the global aristocracy, such as via the CIA, IMF, Bilderberg group, and Trilateral Commission, imposed the global reign of the world’s main private holders of bonds and of stocks: the world’s aristocrats are taking on an increasing percentage of what were previously public assets.

Privatizations, after starting in fascisms during the pre-WWII years, resumed again in the 1970s under the fascist Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet; and in the 1980s under the fascist British leader Margaret Thatcher (a passionate supporter of apartheid in South Africa) and also under the smiling fascist American leader Ronald Reagan (who followed the prior success of Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” of White domination in the by-then resurgent-conservative U.S., and might even be said to have been America’s first fully fascist President); and in the 1990s under several fascist (formerly communist) leaders throughout the former Soviet Union, under the guidance of Harvard University’s fascist economics department, which transferred control from the former nomenklatura, to the new (Western-dependent) “oligarchs,” all under the virtual guidance of its former head, Lawrence Summers, who then was serving as the World Bank President.

And, privatizations are now all the rage throughout the world, such as in today’s fascist United States, and today’s fascist United Kingdom.

Mussolini was the man-of-the-future, but — after Franklin Delano Roosevelt died, and finally Thatcher and Reagan and other ‘free-marketeers’ came into office — Mussolini’s “future” has increasingly become our own “now”: the Axis Powers’ ideology has actually been winning in the post-WW-II world. Only, this time, it’s called instead by such names as “libertarianism” or “neo-liberalism,” no longer “fascism,” so that only the true-believing fascists, the aristocrats, will even know that it’s actually fascism. It’s their Big Con. It’s their Big Lie. Just renaming fascism as “libertarianism” or “neo-liberalism,” has fooled the masses to think that it’s pro-democratic.

“Capitalism” has thus come to be re-defined to refer to only the aristocratically controlled form of capitalism: fascism. The ideological battle has thus apparently been won by a cheap terminological deceit. That’s all it takes for dictatorship to be able to win...

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Photo of Brazil President-Elect Bolsonaro’s Sons Wearing IDF and Mossad Shirts Goes Viral

by Randi Nord, from Mint Press News

Just a week after far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro’s electoral victory in Brazil’s presidential election, the consequences of fascism and support for apartheid and ethno-nationalism rising to power are already coming to fruition.
 
A photo of Bolsonaro’s sons donning shirts depicting logos of Israel’s Mossad spy agency and “Israeli Defense Forces” (military) has gone viral, highlighting how Bolsonaro will normalize ethno-fascism as seen in Apartheid Israel that could stretch from the Americas to the Middle East and beyond.

On the left is Carlos Bolsonaro, a member Rio de Janeiro’s Municipal Chamber who affiliates with the right-wing Social Christian Party. It’s no surprise that Carlos would sport a shirt in support of the Mossad; Israel’s vast intelligence agency is used to attack and silence Palestinian activists at home and abroad, and is also believed to be behind several assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists...

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Venezuelan Opposition Celebrates Far-Right Bolsonaro Victory in Brazil, Calls for Intervention

by Paul  Dobson, Venezuela Analysis

Venezuelan opposition has welcomed the victory of ultra-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil’s presidential elections Sunday, calling on the new president-elect to intervene in Venezuela in line with their political goals.

Bolsonaro won the second round with 55 percent despite nearly 10 percent of ballots being marked null or void. Abstention was 22 percent, one point higher than the first round.

Following the controversial jailing and political barring of leftist frontrunner Lula da Silva on unfounded corruption charges, previously obscure nine-term congressman Bolsonaro soared to popularity in recent months, campaigning on an outsider platform of social conservatism, anti-corruption, and hardline anti-crime policies. Widely considered a “neo-fascist,” the far-right former army captain has repeatedly expressed nostalgia for Brazil’s military dictatorship, pledging to “cleanse” the country of leftists among numerous other inflammatory racist, sexist, and homophobic statements. His campaign team has also hinted at military action against Venezuela, raising concerns that Brazil could be used as a launchpad for a US-led strike on Caracas.

After the announcement of Sunday’s results the ex-president of Venezuela’s National Assembly and leader of the hard-right First Justice party, Julio Borges, took to Twitter to congratulate Bolsonaro, as well as to “invite him to work for the rescuing of democracy in Venezuela.” Borges is currently a fugitive of the Venezuelan justice system in Colombia on charges of conspiracy and alleged masterminding of the August drone terrorist attack against President Maduro.

To the right of First Justice, the Popular Will party also welcomed Bolsonaro’s victory, tweeting that they hope to “count on your struggle to rescue liberty and democracy in Venezuela.”...

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Welcome to the Jungle

by Pepe Escobar, Consortium News

It’s darkness at the break of (tropical) high noon. 

Jean Baudrillard once defined Brazil as “the chlorophyll of our planet”. And yet a land vastly associated worldwide with the soft power of creative joie de vivre has elected a fascist for president. 

Brazil is a land torn apart. Former paratrooper Jair Bolsonaro was elected with 55.63 percent of votes. Yet a record 31 million votes were ruled absent or null and void. No less than 46 million Brazilians voted for the Workers’ Party’s candidate, Fernando Haddad; a professor and former mayor of Sao Paulo, one of the crucial megalopolises of the Global South. The key startling fact is that over 76 million Brazilians did not vote for Bolsonaro. 

His first speech as president exuded the feeling of a trashy jihad by a fundamentalist sect laced with omnipresent vulgarity and the exhortation of a God-given dictatorship as the path towards a new Brazilian Golden Age. 

French-Brazilian sociologist Michael Lowy has described the Bolsonaro phenomenon as “pathological politics on a large scale”. 

His ascension was facilitated by an unprecedented conjunction of toxic factors such as the massive social impact of crime in Brazil, leading to a widespread belief in violent repression as the only solution; the concerted rejection of the Workers’ Party, catalyzed by financial capital, rentiers, agribusiness and oligarchic interests; an evangelical tsunami; a “justice” system historically favoring the upper classes and embedded in State Department-funded “training” of judges and prosecutors, including the notorious Sergio Moro, whose single-minded goal during the alleged anti-corruption Car Wash investigation was to send Lula to prison; and the absolute aversion to democracy by vast sectors of the Brazilian ruling classes. 

That is about to coalesce into a radically anti-popular, God-given, rolling neoliberal shock; paraphrasing Lenin, a case of fascism as the highest stage of neoliberalism. After all, when a fascist sells a “free market” agenda, all his sins are forgiven...

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Brazil’s Zionist Presidential Candidate Threatens to Cut Ties with Palestine

from Fort Russ

The federal deputy and presidential candidate  of the Social Liberal Party (PSL), Jair Bolsonaro, generated controversy this week in saying that if elected, he intends to have the Embassy of Palestine withdrawn from Brazil, since he does not consider Palestine a country.
Bolsonaro’s statement contradicts the fact that Brazil recognized Palestine as an independent state in 2010.

According to the politician, who has repeatedly defended the rapprochement of Brazil with Israel, the installation of the Palestinian diplomatic building in the federal capital in 2016 was the result of negotiations by ex-President Rousseff with “terrorists” in a kind of “pull.”

“Dilma negotiated with Palestine and not with the people there. You do not negotiate with a terrorist, so that embassy on the side of the Palace, there is no area for that,” said the deputy, as quoted by Estadão.

Outraged at the statements made by the deputy in relation to his country of origin, the president of the Arab-Brazilian Cultural Center, businessman Ahmed Ramadan, said in an interview that the position of the PSL candidate in relation to Palestine clearly reflects the Israeli influence of his candidacy, a clear exchange of interests...

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Capitalism is failing all over the Americas! (Caleb Maupin video)