The President of the Republic, without ever having consulted Brazilians, or even himself, about the wisdom of picking a mano-a-mano fight with the United States, began his third term obsessed with presenting himself as the world’s great enemy of the planet’s number one economic, military, and political power. He has had other ideas as entrenched and idiotic as this one, but perhaps none was as irresponsible as his whiny defiance before the Americans — nor is any promising such a humiliating end.

Like a drunk driver who mounts the curb, drives against traffic, and runs red lights, only to later claim he didn’t quite know what he was doing, Lula only stopped when he hit a wall — in this case, the harsh realities of life. Until forced to stop, he didn’t get a single thing right. First and foremost, he insisted on entering the fray without knowing what he hoped to gain from it. He never had even a semblance of a plan to withstand the beating — much less to win. He challenged ‘a boxer,’ only realizing it was Mike Tyson when he took the first liver punch.

To this day, Lula doesn’t know what to say to the United States — sure, “we need to make some proposal, but what exactly is our proposal?” He talks, as he has for the past 40 years, about “needing to negotiate,” but has nothing to offer. He doesn’t even have a negotiator. Brazil’s ambassador in Washington is a nonentity who wasn’t even granted an audience when she tried to speak with anyone of importance. It turns out, by the way, that for two and a half years our government has simply had no effective contact with the greatest country on the planet.

In other words, two and a half years of the Lula-STF (Supreme Federal Court) government have led Brazil to be celebrated in Tanzania or “Palestine” for instance, while remaining a nobody in the world’s capital. How, now, can they find someone who knows what they’re talking about to unravel the mess Lula created with the United States? They don’t know that either. They’ve even mentioned, believe it or not, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, who isn’t fit to negotiate a rental agreement in a small inland town. Is it possible that in a country of 200 million inhabitants, there isn’t anyone better for this job?

It’s a random stroll — an amateurish, underdeveloped, and disjointed affair. And what if American negotiators, should Alckmin manage to get past the front desk, discover that he himself said his boss, on whose behalf he’s negotiating, wanted to be president to return “to the crime scene”? This perfectly illustrates the Lula government’s exact level of seriousness in this whole affair: it started a fight it had nothing to gain from, has no chance of seeing through, and now doesn’t know how to exit. It’s like the proud pauper who can’t even afford to litigate through free legal aid, yet “demands” his “rights.” Ultimately, he ends up begging for a settlement.

Lula began with his usual buffoonery — age, unfortunately, hasn’t improved his creativity. The 50% tariff on Brazilian exports to the United States, announced by Donald Trump in response to the legal lynching of former President Bolsonaro, was met with furious oaths in favor of “Brazil’s sovereignty.” The massive tariff was “unacceptable” — as if he had the leverage to accept or reject anything. He declared Brazil would “retaliate.” He guaranteed he wouldn’t “waive reciprocity.” He demanded Trump would speak “softly” to him.

Lula once again proclaimed his full “solidarity” with the STF’s persecution of Bolsonaro. He spoke of “treason against the homeland.” He again denounced Trump’s “fascism.” “I’ll sell our products elsewhere,” he threatened, as if he were capable of selling anything or if there were a list of clients awaiting his offers. He held meetings. He came with some weak threats to annul American patents, like a pirate nation, or to increase taxation on profit remittances from American companies operating in Brazil. That’s as far as it went.

+ About Brazil

That would be Lula’s most remarkable achievement in his three terms in office — making American companies leave Brazil instead of entering it. It’s simply creating problems where solutions exist. Currently, some 4,500 American companies operate in Brazil, with an approximate investment of US$350 billion and providing jobs for 500,000 Brazilians — generally in the higher income brackets. Is this the enemy to be antagonized? Where will Lula find US$350 billion in investments to replace the Americans? In Venezuela’s Abreu e Lima Refinery?

There is no problem in Brazil, of any kind, caused by the presence of American companies in our economy. It’s precisely the opposite — even within the Workers’ Party (PT) there are those who understand that it’s good to have U.S. companies investing, creating jobs, and paying taxes in Brazil. So what is gained by meddling with this? This is what a country gets for picking fights it shouldn’t: outcomes nobody wanted and that were never a government objective. Lula and Janja want the end of capitalism, of course. But not today, right?

Naturally, none of this was done; in fact, Brazil’s entire reaction to Trump, in terms of concrete actions, has so far amounted to absolutely nothing. They talked, and talked, and talked, but instead of doing anything worthwhile, they did nothing. Lula claims, as if he were the Attorney General of the Universe, that nothing has happened yet because he, Lula, hasn’t done anything. When he does, he assures, things will simply materialize. Only the media swallows this. It says he’s playing a highly complex game of chess — so complex that no one has understood it.

There’s no chess game at all; there’s not even a domino match in the hood. What there’s for sure is the quintessential boor who went looking for a fight at the nightclub, found one, and now runs behind the bouncer screaming, “Hold me back, hold me back, I might do something crazy!” What is this “something” Lula refers to? It’s nothing at all. There isn’t a single meager screw Brazil possesses that the United States truly needs; conversely, without the Americans, Brazil is in dire straits. Lula and the fat cats in Brasília, in their deadly ignorance, have no idea how much the United States can hurt us all.

The only place Lula is finding success is on Globo and the rest of the mainstream media, though it’s unclear for how long. Their view is that nothing better could have happened for the government and the STF than the 50% tariffs imposed by Trump. Brazil, which had been detesting Lula, his catastrophe movie, and the Supreme Court’s totalitarian delirium, supposedly began to love him — the Brazilian people, according to the press’s verdict, obviously united against Trump, “foreign intervention,” and the threat to national sovereignty. Lula is the favorite for 2026. Bolsonaro, the coup plotters, and the right are traitors.

Not even the PT, arguably, believes in these mirages, but so far the media’s support is all Lula has achieved in his personal Third World War. No democracy has so far bothered to side with Brazil — not genuinely. There hasn’t been a single street protest of the “Yankees Go Home” type anywhere in the national territory. In a country where it controls less than 20% of Congress, the government lacks the ammunition to choose the world’s greatest power as an enemy. Not even Lula’s precious BRICS, save for the South African kleptocracy, was emboldened to help. On the contrary, Russia said it wasn’t them who came up with the idea of ending the dollar. “Me neither,” said China. Both pointed to Lula.

Nor can the government expect help from the STF — precisely now, when it needs it most. Alexandre de Moraes, to whom this entire dreadful situation is owed, does the opposite of what would be expected from someone who wished to calm things down. How can things calm down if he misses no opportunity to further antagonize the Americans? In his zero-tolerance fit against any risk of pacification, Moraes has just shackled the former president with a criminal’s ankle monitor. Bolsonaro is prohibited from moving. He must remain locked in his house at night. He cannot approach any foreign authority.

He is also forbidden from using social media or even appearing on it. He is forbidden from giving interviews. The Park Maniac can give them; he cannot. He is forbidden from speaking with his own son. So, there we have it. The United States justifies its tariff punishment on Brazil with the judicial persecution of Bolsonaro; then, Justice Moraes comes along and makes a point of saying, “I’ll persecute him even more. Wanna bet?” With these actions, others, and those yet to come, Lula is more vulnerable than a doughnut sitting alone on a police station’s desk at noon.

Was it he who started it, with his ideas of leading the world against the United States, and this year, against Donald Trump? Yes, it was. He allowed ships from Iran’s terrorist government to dock in Rio de Janeiro. He wants to break ties with Israel, whom he accuses of “genocide.” He insults Americans. He proposes ending the dollar as the leading trade currency. He is the number one friend of all dictatorships. But he was never taken seriously enough to create a crisis. Not Alexandre de Moraes, however. He has deformed the Brazilian state to such an extent that he finally caught the attention of the United States.

The government is condemned, or has condemned itself, to provide full support to Moraes and the STF — no matter what they do, it must remain in their favor. What “negotiation,” as Lula claims, can emerge from such a charade? Moraes can arrest Bolsonaro whenever he pleases; he could arrest Archangel Gabriel if he felt like it. If he wants to break relations with the United States, he will force the government to do so. If he wants war, he will cast Brazil into one. This is the price Lula is paying for having sold his soul to the STF.