Brazil's brave stand against Trump [View all]

July 30, 2025
By Joseph Stiglitz

For decades, the US was the champion of democracy, the rule of law and human rights. Of course, there were glaring discrepancies between rhetoric and reality: During the Cold War, the US overturned democratically elected governments in Greece, Iran, Chile and elsewhere in the name of defeating communism. At home, the US was in a battle to uphold black Americans’ civil rights a century after slavery’s end. More recently, the US Supreme Court has acted aggressively to restrict efforts to rectify the legacies of the long history of racial discrimination.

While the US has often failed to practice what it preached, now it does neither.

SNIP*
Lula has defended his country’s sovereignty not only in the domain of trade, but also in regulating US-controlled tech platforms. The US’ tech oligarchs use their money and influence worldwide to try to force countries to give them free reign to pursue their profit-maximizing strategies, which inevitably cause enormous harms, including by serving as a channel of misinformation and disinformation.

As in recent elections in Canada and Australia, Lula got a “Trump bump” in national support as Brazilians recoiled from the US administration and rallied around him. However, that was not what motivated Lula to take his stance. It was a genuine belief in Brazil’s right to pursue its own policies without foreign meddling.
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2025/07/30/2003841143

Must be nice to have such great leadership.