Trump's humiliation of Brazil a wake-up call for Brexit Britain
The US president is only too willing to embarrass a supplicant foreign ally to shore up support at home
about 5 hours ago
Tom Hennigan
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Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and US president Donald Trump at the White House in March 2019. Bolsonaro was quick to embrace his nickname of “the Trump of the Tropics”, and has adopted his US peer as kind of political lodestar. Photograph: Getty Images
Despite the now standard diplomatic ructions that come with a visit from US president Donald Trump, Conservative party planners can be reasonably happy with how last week’s Nato meeting in Watford, England, went off. The usually voluble Trump said nothing to derail the election prospects of UK prime minister Boris Johnson by denying any predatory interest in the National Health Service (NHS) even as he remains a “fan of Brexit”.
But anyone in London who thinks such message discipline bodes well for the prospects of a future trade deal between his administration and the UK once the latter has finally cut itself loose from the EU should pause and consider the implications of another of Trump’s diplomatic moves last week.
Before heading off to the military alliance’s rather fractious birthday party the US president carried out his diplomatic equivalent of a drive-by shooting. On Monday, out of the blue, he took to Twitter to announce he was reimposing tariffs on Brazilian and Argentine steel and aluminium imports because the two South American states had been “presiding over a massive devaluation of their currencies. which is not good for our farmers”.
The tweet apparently blindsided Trump’s own officials, to say nothing of the administrations in Brasília and Buenos Aires. They thought the steel and aluminium issue had been resolved last year when they voluntarily imposed quotas on their exports in a bid to appease the nativist US president.
The tweet also shocked observers because it was a naked self-declared act of retaliation, and so violated World Trade Organisation rules.
More:
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/trump-s-humiliation-of-brazil-a-wake-up-call-for-brexit-britain-1.4111094
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