Donald Trump

Lula to Trump: If you charge us 50%, we’ll charge you 50%. Brazil must be respected!

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Original article by Pablo Meriguet republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Brazilian President Lula da Silva wearing hat “Brazil is for the Brazilians”. Photo: Lula / X

The diplomatic row devolved into a potential trade crisis when Trump threatened Brazil with higher tariffs on Brazilian products if it did not cease the alleged persecution of the ultra-right former president Jair Bolsonaro.

Tensions between Washington and Brasília persist. On July 7, Trump sent a letter to the Brazilian government urging an end to the alleged persecution of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro and threatening a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods.

Lula responds

Brazilian President Lula da Silva swiftly responded to Bolsonaro’s close friend and ally, asserting that Brazil’s decisions and its judiciary are sovereign and that they reject any interference whatsoever. He announced reciprocity in the measures taken by Trump: “If he charges us 50%, we will charge him 50% … Brazil is respected!”

In a post on X, Lula wrote: “Brazil is a sovereign country with independent institutions that will not accept being tutored by anyone. The judicial process against those who planned the coup d’état is the sole responsibility of the Brazilian justice system and is therefore not subject to any interference or threat that would harm the independence of national institutions.”

Lula stated that the information about the “alleged US deficit is false”, pointing out the fact that the US is not currently the main country to which Brazilian products are sold. In other words, the United States sells more to Brazil than it buys from it, meaning the US may stand to lose more from a trade war.

The Brazilian president noted: “The US government’s statistics show a surplus in trade in goods and services with Brazil of around 410 billion dollars over the last 15 years. In this sense, any measure to raise tariffs unilaterally will be responded to in light of the Brazilian Law of Economic Reciprocity. Sovereignty, respect, and the uncompromising defense of the interests of the Brazilian people are the values that guide our relationship with the world.”

However, it is important to emphasize that Lula is not closed to talks with the Trump administration: “We have several options. We can go to the WTO [World Trade Organization], initiate international investigations, and demand explanations [from the White House]. But the main thing is to show that Brazil is respected.”

The crisis has also involved other institutions of both countries. On July 9, the US Embassy released a public statement defending Bolsonaro: “Jair Bolsonaro and his family have been strong partners of the United States … The political persecution against him, his family, and his supporters is shameful and disrespectful of Brazil’s democratic traditions.”

In response, the Brazilian Secretariat of State, which called the statement “undue meddling” in Brazil’s internal affairs, summoned the US chargé d’affaires, Gabriel Escobar, in an expression of diplomatic displeasure.

Lula’s progressive government has now taken further concrete measures to respond to Trump’s threats. On Monday, July 14, Lula signed a decree regulating the country’s Reciprocity Law. According to the announcement by the President’s office, the decree, “establishes criteria for suspending trade concessions, investments, and obligations related to intellectual property rights in response to unilateral measures adopted by countries or economic blocs that negatively impact Brazil’s international competitiveness.”

The decree also calls for the creation of a committee which will be responsible for “deciding on the application of provisional countermeasures and monitoring negotiations to overcome the unilaterally imposed measures.”

Read more: Beijing denounces Trump’s use of “coercive tariffs” to pressure Global South to isolate China

Bolsonaro’s case

Bolsonaro, together with several generals and civilians aligned with his ultra-right program, is accused of participating in a plot to overturn the election that he lost to Lula at the end of 2022. According to the prosecutor’s office, part of this plot was the coup attempt on January 8 in Brasília, when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the Three Powers Square and other Brazilian government buildings, and vandalized and destroyed them.

Read more: Jair Bolsonaro will stand trial for coup attempt

The episode on January 8, 2023 somewhat resembled January 6, 2021, when hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol building to protest the allegedly “stolen elections” in November 2020. Though hundreds were prosecuted for their participation in the January 6 riots, Trump pardoned 1,500 of those convicted, in one of his first actions in office.

People’s movements in Brazil and left groups have demanded that the Lula government hold those responsible for the January 8 coup attempt responsible to ensure it does not happen again  .

Mobilizations in Brazil

Social and trade union movements in Brazil organized a mass mobilization on July 10 in São Paulo against a veto by the Brazilian congress that aimed to thwart Lula’s project to increase taxes on the richest and most powerful companies.

The protest soon incorporated the tension between Washington and Brasília, with demonstrators rejecting Trump’s threats: “The demonstration had been born as a response to the Congress veto against Lula’s government projects that sought to charge more taxes on large companies and banking transactions, but given the situation it became a march to repudiate the tariffs imposed by Trump against Brazil,” said journalist Nacho Lemus on X.

In this way, it is entirely possible that Washington’s measures could backfire: not only could they deepen the unity around a sovereigntist sentiment and behind Lula as a defender of the nation’s interests, but many businessmen may even distance themselves from a crisis that carries risks for them as well.

Geopolitical implications

Brazil is South America’s leading economy and is currently part of the BRICS. Its main trading partner is China, far ahead of the United States. Some analysts have seen in Trump’s statements more than a simple gesture of generosity to Jair Bolsonaro, but rather a tactic to enter negotiations from a stronger position with one of the largest economies in the Global South and one of the fundamental nations involved in building a multipolar world not subordinated to US financial hegemony.

It is a surprise to no one that Lula, for the moment, has not approached the second Trump administration for negotiations, so there has been a kind of tense calm for the last six months between the countries. The calm, however, was abruptly ended with the back and forth messages from the top officials in the public and on social media.

For now, it seems that Brasilia has extended its hand to negotiate a “ceasefire” on social media. Fernando Hadad, secretary of finance, has reiterated his government’s willingness to engage in dialogue with the US government. For now, it is unclear if Washington has responded to this gesture, although it is likely that the economic advisors of the White House would caution the president against ignoring the clear geo-economic reality.

Original article by Pablo Meriguet republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingLula to Trump: If you charge us 50%, we’ll charge you 50%. Brazil must be respected!

‘The Palestinian genocide threatens our entire multilateral system’

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/palestinian-genocide-threatens-our-entire-multilateral-system

 Relatives carry the body of 13-year-old Seraje Ebrahim, killed in an Israeli strike on a drinking water distribution point, for burial outside Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, July 13, 2025

Over 30 nations to gather in Colombia to bring a halt to the genocide in Gaza

MORE than 30 nations gather in Bogota, Colombia tomorrow [today] for an “Emergency Conference” to bring a halt to the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.

UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who is attending the conference, said the gathering “will go down as the moment in history that states finally stood up to do the right thing.” 

The conference is called by The Hague Group which was set up in January this year.

Jointly convened by Colombia and South Africa, The Hague Group’s co-chairs, the conference brings together 32 states including Brazil, China, Cuba, Indonesia, Ireland, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Spain, Turkey and Venezuela.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro described the conference as an opportunity “to move from condemnation to collective action.”

Ahead of the conference Colombia’s Vice Foreign Minister Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir said: “The Palestinian genocide threatens our entire multilateral system.” 

…

Article continues, discussing

  • US imposed sanctions on UN Special Rapporteur Fransesca Albanese who is attending the Bogota conference.
  • Attempts in UK Parliament by the standing group on atrocity crimes “to create a clearer legal obligation on the British government to prevent genocides, and to determine if one is occurring rather than leaving such judgements to international courts.”
  • South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice alleging violations of the Genocide Convention by Israel.
  • United Nations general assembly voting to take action on “Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” with a 12-month deadline to deliver concrete obligations — investigations, prosecutions, sanctions, asset freezes, and cessation of imports and arms.
  • Former Israeli prime ministers Yair Lapid and Ehud Olmert describing plans to create a “humanitarian city” in southern Gaza as amounting to interning Palestinians in a “concentration camp.”
  • Increasing numbers of Palestinians getting killed by Israeli forces.
  • More than 58,000 killed and 138,520 wounded, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Experiencing issues with this image not appearing. I suspect because it's so critical of Zionist Keir Starmer's support of and complicity in Israel's genocides.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza's hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone obect to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities,mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.

Continue Reading‘The Palestinian genocide threatens our entire multilateral system’

‘Profound concern’ as scientists say extreme heat ‘now the norm’ in UK

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/14/profound-concern-as-scientists-say-extreme-heat-now-the-norm-in-uk

Weather records clearly show the UK’s climate is different now compared with just a few decades ago. Photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/Shutterstock

Increasing frequency of heatwaves and flooding raises fears over health, infrastructure and how society functions

Record-breaking extreme weather is the new norm in the UK, scientists have said, showing that the country is firmly in the grip of the climate crisis.

The hottest days people endure have dramatically increased in frequency and severity, and periods of intense rain have also ramped up, data from hundreds of weather stations shows. Heatwaves and floods leading to deaths and costly damage are of “profound concern” for health, infrastructure and the functioning of society, the scientists said.

The weather records clearly show the UK’s climate is different now compared with just a few decades ago, the scientists said, as a result of the carbon pollution emitted by burning fossil fuels.

The analysis found that the number of days with temperatures 5C above the average for 1961-1990 had doubled in the last 10 years. For days 8C above average, the number has trebled and for 10C above average it has quadrupled. The UK has also become 8% sunnier in the last decade.

…

The assessment, called the State of the UK Climate 2024 and published in the International Journal of Climatology, found the last three years were in the UK’s top five hottest years on record. The warmest spring on record was seen in 2024 although this has already been surpassed in 2025.

The UK has particularly long meteorological records and the Central England Temperature series is the longest instrumental record in the world. It shows that recent temperatures have far exceeded any in at least 300 years. However, today’s high temperatures are likely to be average by 2050, and cool by 2100, the scientists said.

…

Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Continue Reading‘Profound concern’ as scientists say extreme heat ‘now the norm’ in UK

‘Unforgivable’: FEMA Missed Thousands of Calls from Texas Flood Victims After Noem Fired Contractors

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Original article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem participates in a round table event with President Donald Trump at the Hill Country Youth Event Center to discuss last week’s flash flooding on July 11, 2025 in Kerrville, Texas. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

“They are intentionally breaking government—even the parts that help us when we are deep in crisis,” said Sen. Chris Murphy.

Outrage continues to grow against U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem over her response to the deadly floods that ravaged Texas last week.

According to a Friday report from The New York Times, more than two-thirds of phone calls to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from flood victims went unanswered after Noem allowed hundreds of contractors to be laid off on July 5, just a day after the nightmare storm.

According to The Times, this dramatically hampered the ability of the agency to respond to calls from survivors in the following days:

On July 5, as floodwaters were starting to recede, FEMA received 3,027 calls from disaster survivors and answered 3,018, or roughly 99.7 percent, the documents show. Contractors with four call center companies answered the vast majority of the calls.

That evening, however, Noem did not renew the contracts with the four companies, and hundreds of contractors were fired, according to the documents and the person briefed on the matter.

The next day, July 6, FEMA received 2,363 calls and answered 846, or roughly 35.8 percent, according to the documents. And on Monday, July 7, the agency fielded 16,419 calls and answered 2,613, or around 15.9 percent, the documents show.

Calling is one of the primary ways that flood victims apply for aid from the disaster relief agency. But Noem would wait until July 10—five days later—to renew the contracts of the people who took those phone calls.

“Responding to less than half of the inquiries is pretty horrific,” Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, told The Times.

“Put yourself in the shoes of a survivor: You’ve lost everything, you’re trying to find out what’s insured and what’s not, and you’re navigating multiple aid programs,” he added. “One of the most important services in disaster recovery is being able to call someone and walk through these processes and paperwork.”

The lapse is a direct result of a policy introduced by Noem last month, which required any payments made by FEMA above $100,000 to be directly approved by her before taking effect. Noem, who has said she wants to eliminate FEMA entirely, described it as a way of limiting “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Under this policy, Noem allowed other critical parts of the flood response to wait for days as well. Earlier this week, multiple officials within FEMA told CNN that she waited more than 72 hours to authorize the deployment of search and rescue teams and aerial imaging.

Following The Times’ piece, DHS put out a statement claiming that “NO ONE was left without assistance, and every call was responded to urgently.”

“When a natural disaster strikes, phone calls surge, and wait times can subsequently increase,” DHS said. “Despite this expected influx, FEMA’s disaster call center responded to every caller swiftly and efficiently, ensuring no one was left without assistance. No call center operators were laid off or fired.”

This is undercut, however, by internal emails also obtained by The Times, which showed FEMA officials becoming frustrated and blaming the DHS Secretary for the lack of contracts. One official wrote in a July 8 email to colleagues: “We still do not have a decision, waiver, or signature from the DHS Secretary.”

Democratic lawmakers were already calling for investigations into Noem’s response to the floods before Friday. They also sought to look into how the Trump administration’s mass firings of FEMA employees, as well as employees of the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) may have hampered the response.

Following The Times’ revelations, outrage has reached a greater fever pitch.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) called it “unforgivable and unforgettable” and an “inexcusable lapse in top leadership.”

“Sec. Noem shows that dismantling FEMA impacts real people in real time,” he said. “It hurts countless survivors & increases recovery costs.”

In response to the news, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) simply wrote that “Kristi Noem must resign now.”

Others pointed out that Noem has often sought to justify abolishing FEMA by characterizing it as slow and ineffectual. They suggested her dithering response was deliberate.

“She broke it on purpose,” said Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) in an interview on MSNBC. “So that when it fails this summer, she can say, ‘Oh, see, we told you—FEMA doesn’t work.'”

“It’s not really incompetence because they know what they are doing,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “They are intentionally breaking government—even the parts that help us when we are deep in crisis.”

Original article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Donald Trump urges you to be a Climate Science denier like him. He says that he makes millions and millions for destroying the planet, Burn, Baby, Burn and Flood, Baby, Flood.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Nigel Farage urges you to ignore facts and reality and be a climate science denier like him. He says that Reform UK has received millions and millions from the fossil fuel industry to promote climate denial and destroy the planet.
Continue Reading‘Unforgivable’: FEMA Missed Thousands of Calls from Texas Flood Victims After Noem Fired Contractors

Trump’s support of Israel’s war aims will scupper his hope of a Nobel prize

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Original article by Paul Rogers republished from Open Democracy under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. 

Israeli PM Binyamin Netanyahu this week announced he has nominated Donald Trump for a Nobel peace prize during a visit to Washington | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The US president is desperate for a peace prize. That doesn’t align with Netanyahu’s plans for ethnic cleansing in Gaza

Donald Trump’s claim to be nearing a breakthrough in the Gaza conflict, as he insisted ahead of his meetings with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu this week, in the end came to nothing.

Netanyahu has returned home from Washington. Mediating sessions continue in Qatar, but prospects are poor, which is hardly surprising given Netanyahu’s war aims of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians in Gaza and much of the occupied West Bank.

Away from Gaza, Netanyahu wants to denuclearise Iran and force a change to its government. While Israel may present the recent war with Iran as a great success, developments since then suggest otherwise.

The key to the nuclear weapon issue is how much of the 60% enriched uranium that Iran has hidden away has survived, not whether it needs to enrich it further for a potential nuclear weapon. The common belief that the 90% enrichment is essential for weapons-grade uranium is wrong; the Hiroshima bomb used 80%.

Even 60% would be enough. Such a device may not be as efficient as one with 95% enrichment; it would be crude and cumbersome and might even be too heavy to deliver, but it could certainly power a test device and detonate.

That would be a huge symbolic moment, and would certainly make it much more important to move to a diplomatic outcome to the crisis, however much Netanyahu would oppose that.

In short, Netanyahu’s war has not ended Iran’s nuclear potential, with its programme damaged but far from destroyed. Similarly, the Iranian regime shows little sign of instability despite being under economic pressure.

Gaza, meanwhile, is turning into a double disaster for Israel as it transitions to fully fledged pariah status. In the past five weeks, another 640 Palestinians have been killed and over 4,500 wounded.

Hungry children are being killed and maimed as they wait for food. One of the few emergency hospitals still functional is a small, 60-bed Red Cross hospital in the south of Gaza. It says it has dealt with 2,200 weapon-related wounds in recent weeks.

To make matters worse, Netanyahu’s defence minister, Israel Katz, insists that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians will now be concentrated into a huge detention camp in the south of the strip pending deportation to who knows where.

On top of this, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) are even failing to destroy Hamas. Just ten IDF soldiers have been killed in the last two weeks, and another 14 injured. These figures may be very low compared with the scores of Palestinians killed every week, but they are more than enough to demonstrate that Hamas is still active and even controls parts of Gaza. We can also assume there is little shortage of angry young recruits to Hamas who have seen their families and friends killed and maimed.

The conflict continues in other ways, as well. When Israel fought its air war against Iran last month, the impression given by most of the mainstream media was that while occasional Iranian missiles might have got through the multi-layered Israeli air defences, their impact was minimal – perhaps causing some damage and even a handful of deaths and injuries, but with far greater costs to Iran.

While the extent of the fatalities and injuries may be correct, the 42 Iranian ballistic missiles that reached Israeli territory had a substantially greater impact than was admitted, with at least six hitting heavily protected military targets, including a major airbase and an intelligence-gathering centre.

Iran’s non-military targets included oil and power facilities, while its other missiles exploded in densely populated residential areas and left 15,000 homeless. These attacks cannot be reported within Israel due to strict military censorship rules.

This is relevant because it relates to possible future developments, especially Trump’s pursuit of a Nobel Peace Prize, for which Netanyahu announced he had nominated him this week.

For Israel, US support was crucial in its support during its war with Iran. The IDF’s air defences relied heavily on an advanced X-Band Radar run by the US military, while two US Navy destroyers provided anti-missile cover. The Pentagon also provided two ground-based Terminal High Altitude Area Defence anti-missile systems, which launched at least 36 interceptor missiles, reportedly costing $12m each.

In the immediate post-conflict period, direct US support will expand further. Even before the war on Gaza began in October 2023, the US spent an annual $3.8bn on military assistance for Israel. That has since shot up, reaching $18bn in the first 12 months of the war.

The US is deeply embedded in the defence of Israel, but Netanyahu’s war aims have not been met, and he needs the conflict to continue for his own political survival. When the next phase of war starts, the US will be intimately involved, and Trump will see his vision of a Nobel Peace Prize disappearing over the horizon.

Continue ReadingTrump’s support of Israel’s war aims will scupper his hope of a Nobel prize