How is Trump putting America first by bashing Brazil?

On July 17th the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, dispatched a memorandum to America’s diplomats stepping back from a decades-old priority, promoting democracy abroad. Henceforth, he wrote, diplomats should simply congratulate the winning candidate in any country’s election and refrain from “opining” on the fairness of the process, or even on “the democratic values of the country in question”. The change, he wrote, was in keeping with “the administration’s emphasis on national sovereignty”.

PREMIUM Illustration: David Simonds

And Mr Trump did not stop at mere opining. About two weeks later, citing the prosecution of Mr Bolsonaro, he imposed a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports. For his part, Mr Rubio invoked the Global Magnitsky Act, which is meant to protect human rights, to impose sanctions on the judge overseeing the case. Mr Rubio was suddenly determined to promote democratic values, and not just in Brazil: “Let this be a warning to those who would trample on the fundamental rights of their countrymen,” he wrote.

Expecting consistency from Mr Trump about policy is, of course, as foolish as expecting modesty about anything. And in the directive about ignoring antidemocratic behaviour, Mr Rubio carved out an exception, saying diplomats could raise objections when “there is a clear and compelling US foreign-policy interest.” It is Mr Trump’s slippery definition of the American interest that makes naming his foreign policy such a challenge for those who have tried to stick a label to it. Is he an isolationist or an interventionist? A hawk or a dove? The answer is yes. “I’m a nationalist and a globalist,” he has observed. Respect for human rights is a vexing issue for him in Brazil, but not in El Salvador, for the same reason that antisemitism can outrage him when it is identified within Harvard University, but not within, say, Kanye West. Principles can be useful as weapons in a thoroughly pragmatic global struggle to punish adversaries and reward acolytes—as distinct from allies—in pursuit of a national interest that has become inseparable from the president’s own interests.

Mr Trump himself has advertised defining themes for his foreign policy that have proved misleading. Take Mr Rubio’s invocation of an “emphasis on national sovereignty”. In a speech to the United Nations in 2018, Mr Trump said he valued sovereignty and independence “above all” and honoured “the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs, and traditions”. The United States, he said, “will not tell you how to live or work or worship”. Just this May he repeated such assurances in a speech in Saudi Arabia, mocking past “interventionalists” for “giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs”.

Yet no administration in memory has delivered more righteous public lectures, at least to allies, than this one, whether over South Africa’s treatment of its white minority or all Europe’s approach to free speech. Moreover, Mr Trump’s piety about sovereignty is hard to square with his demand for the Panama Canal, not to mention for Canada and Greenland.

Mr Trump’s preferred label for his foreign policy—“America First”—also confuses people. The historical meaning of the term, combined with Mr Trump’s abuse of allies and his scorn for international institutions, has led both admirers and adversaries to view him as an isolationist. He is not. He believes strongly in diplomacy (when he conducts it) and also in unilateral military action (when he is in charge of it). He has not withdrawn American leadership from the world; he has instead declared himself unconstrained to assert that leadership where, when and how he wants.

This is the same way he uses power domestically. He invokes states’ rights when it is convenient for him, as on abortion, but has sent in the National Guard over a governor’s objections when he saw fit, too. When informed in June by the Atlantic that critics such as Tucker Carlson did not consider his support of Israel against Iran to be consistent with “America First”, he replied, “I’m the one that decides that.” After all, he said, he invented the term.

Putting the sovereign in sovereignty

Mr Trump appreciates the power of “weaponised interdependence”, a term coined by two political scientists, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, to describe how America in the 21st century has learned to use networks of finance, trade and even communication as tools of coercion in foreign policy. This is why America’s allies are having such a hard time in the Trump era. As Mr Trump puts his understanding of America’s needs and wants first in every bilateral relationship, he has more leverage to extract concessions from allies than from adversaries. Now, the more a country depends on America, the less dependable America is for it.

In the stand-off with Brazil, Mr Trump is testing how far he can push an independent-minded ally jealous of its own sovereignty, and how far he can stretch his definition of America’s interest. Mr Trump has pointed to bilateral trade deficits as an emergency to justify his other tariffs, but America has run a trade surplus with Brazil for more than ten years. And Brazilian exporters may be able to quickly find new markets for such commodities as beef and coffee, which, unlike orange juice, Mr Trump has not exempted from his tariff. If Americans wind up paying more for hamburgers to help a friend of Donald Trump avoid his day in court, they will be right to wonder who is really being put first.

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