Bulletins and News Discussion from July 7th to July 13th, 2025 - Sanctions on Russia: The Sequel

One thing I'd like to add which is probably a bit depressing for a website so steeped in the hopes of political organization is that there's something more important than radicalizing regular Brazilians. It is mildly inconveniencing Brazilian capitalists.

Brazil is a neo-feudal economy where each state is dominated by one and up to a handful of dynasties. Often these clans are centuries old. Their 'clients', or supporters, are not so much large groups of poorer brazilians but rather the lesser nobility which bridges the gap with the masses, of which the Bolsonaro family is only one amongst many.

My wording is very deliberate. These families like the Andradas are often descendants of Viscounts and Ministers of Brazil's monarchical period. Sometimes their influence is even older than that. They all remained aristocrats after the formal end of Slavery, they dabbled into industrial capitalism during the national developmentist period (1930s-1982) and were knocked right back into being landowners first due to the IMF policies imposed on Brazil after the great latin american sovereign debt crisis. The Marinhos for an example are famous for owning the largest media broadcaster in Brazil, Globo. But their real fortunes is, like everyone else's, tied to Agribusiness exports. Every brazilian region, state and microregion mirrors that dynamic - an oligarchy that owns mining and farming ventures, owns the local broadcasters, has infinite amounts of credit and money with which to dominate the higher echelons of politics. They are often mayors, governors and senators. Local assemblies, state assemblies and the lower house of congress are then staffed by their lesser peers, the small time oligarchs like the Bolsonaros - a smaller landowning family that has ties with Rio de Janeiro's criminal scene.

Which brings us to the tariffs.

You can argue that the tariff-blackmail was a long time coming (it's the second time its been done to Brazil this year), and the odds are that industry was already planning around this high likelihood. The fact is that the Bolsonaros provided the US government with a smokescreen to attack the profits of Brazil's entire aristocracy. This is something that triggered unexpected political support in Congress. Ie, the Agribusiness Caucus is demanding that Lula respond firmly to Trump. The same Agribusiness Caucus that was behind financing Bolsonaro's coup attempt. The larger context being that this isn't just about the (very much commodity dominated) brazilian exports to the US either. It is about the fact that the US is Brazil's competitor when it comes to agricultural exports to China.

To put it into perspective our soybean exports to China is superior in value to everything we export to the US put together, with China, Europe and even Argentina being this year's growth markets. Not the USA.

Brazil is in the afterglow of the Jakarta Method. There will always be that hard core group of 20 to 30 percent of people that considers themselves right wing and, quite literally, places the US above not only Brazil but probably God as well. Then there's the rest of the country. Either way normal people organizing or becoming reflexively more anti american is on the menu, which is quite an achievement because unlike all the spanish speaking countries Brazil does not actually have a history of anti americanism - before, during or after the Cold War. But as far as I can tell what the Bolsonaros did against the extractive elites is their real sin.

If the tendencies are similar to what you see in Colombia, it would only cause people to become more anti-american. But that on its own doesn't make people less liberal or, god forbid, commies.

On the other hand, the anti-China rhetoric has ramped down, and, from at least what I can see, China is slowly being less seen as a country that manufactures cheap copies and is ever so slightly more respected.

It's a long process though.

Now, for people going full anti-imperialist? I think it will take the US directly attacking a country in the region. Possibly Panama or Mexico. But the loss in civil society support of gringo hegemony is definitely noticeable today.

Do you think Trump could help radicalize Brazil? Make it less liberal?

No, I believe not until Lula da Silva leaves power as president, he is the leader of one of the more moderate left-wing factions within the Workers' Party (the party is generally more left-wing than Lula, while Lula is a SocDem, the party supports Democratic Socialism). And Lula is still the most influential and popular left-wing leader in Brazil. So unless Trump does something really stupid, like attempt a military coup or mess with Brazil too much, I don't see Lula becoming totally left-wing. I believe there is potential for a Workers Party candidate to be a democratic socialist and be elected and supported by Lula in the future, if the left becomes popular/right becomes unpopular enough for that to happen.

Force it into stronger coalitions with China or anti-imperialist, non-Western countries?

This I can see happening, as Lula generally has a good foreign policy that hasn't changed much since the early 1990s (they used to be pro-Soviet, but quickly changed to pro-China, but also maintained their own independence in trying to create their own Latin American political bloc, which led to the creation of the São Paulo Forum). Lula also has strong ties with the Middle East, Africa and Asia. I'm sure that Brazil to this day helps train the armies of Namibia and Angola.

There was some talk of resurrecting Unasur (South America's version of the European Union), but it didn't go anywhere. I think this is because Brazil and most of Latin America want Celac to be more than their version of the OAS, I think they want it to be the Latin American version of the European Union/African Union in the future. Another thing that many people don't talk about is how much Brazil influences Uruguay, Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia and even Suriname, Guyana and Venezuela. It's quite clear that Lula sent part of his campaign staff to help elect Yamandú Orsi (Mojica's presidential candidate) in Uruguay, and, iirc, he also sent the same staff to help Maduro during the election campaign, to Efraín Alegre (Liberal Party - Pro-China Social Democrat) in Paraguay and to Sergio Massa (Left Peronist - Social Democrat) in Argentina.

Make it less liberal?

In some Latin American countries, the word liberal also means neoliberal/socially conservative. Generally, party names usually means nothing or make little sense, because politics has changed so much over time that the original party name usually lose its meaning. Example: The Liberal Party of Paraguay is a left-wing social democratic party that supports China, and the Liberal Party of Brazil is a far-right Bolsonaro party that is pro-US.

That's kinda what he's doing to every country on the planet, to varying degrees, with his tariffs