In summer 2025, the Trump administration slapped 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian products, canceled the visas of eight Brazilian supreme-court justices and imposed financial and travel sanctions on a powerful justice and his family. The message was blunt. Washington’s machinery was being used not to defend democracy, but to punish enemies, reward allies and meddle in another country’s politics while ordinary people on both sides paid the price.
Who Gets Hit First
Brazilian officials found that nobody in the Trump administration would speak to the formal representatives of left-leaning President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Brazil’s ambassador to Washington was isolated, and the foreign minister could not get through to anyone. Fernando Haddad, Brazil’s finance minister, scheduled a call with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, but the Treasury Department canceled it two days before the meeting and Bessent used the slot to meet with Eduardo Bolsonaro instead. Eduardo Bolsonaro lives in Texas, has befriended Donald Trump Jr. and attends Conservative Political Action Conference meetings. That’s the hierarchy in plain sight: the official channels got shut out, while the son of a former president got the door opened.
Trump publicly attacked what he called the "WITCH HUNT" against Jair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil, who was on trial for plotting a coup after losing the 2022 election. Steve Bannon called the Brazilian insurrectionists "freedom fighters." Brazilian Justice Alexandre de Moraes had not been credibly accused of the kinds of offenses that usually prompt U.S. sanctions, but Trump and Elon Musk targeted him because de Moraes’s court was trying Bolsonaro and because de Moraes had angered Musk. Musk said de Moraes "needs to leave," comparing him to Voldemort. The state’s punishment tools were not subtle. They were personal.
The Power Behind the Curtain
A truce was later arranged with the help of Joesley Batista, a billionaire whose meatpacking company does business in both the U.S. and Brazil and whose American subsidiary donated $5 million to Trump’s inauguration. The tariffs were reduced. That’s how the system works when money, access and political loyalty all move through the same narrow channels. The public gets the bill. The connected get the meeting.
The State Department later appointed Darren Beattie, founder of Revolver News and promoter of the "Fedsurrection" conspiracy, as a senior adviser on Brazil policy. When Beattie asked to visit Brazil for a minerals conference, the Brazilian government refused him a visa. In June, the Trump administration denounced as "lawfare" a Brazilian court sentence against Eduardo Bolsonaro for seeking U.S. intervention in his father’s trial. In July, the administration planned to send two envoys to Brazil to meet with election deniers and "investigate" the Brazilian electoral system, but their visa requests were turned down. The apparatus keeps reaching for foreign elections like a hand in someone else’s pocket.
Applebaum says the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy declares that America will "help Europe correct its current trajectory" and that it has a special interest in the politics of historically white, Christian nations of Europe. A 27-year-old Trump appointee named Samuel Samson wrote on the State Department’s Substack that Europeans were waging "an aggressive campaign against Western civilization." Sarah Rogers, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, told Congress that America is now "fully utilizing all the tools at our disposal—exchange programs, cultural heritage initiatives, micro-grants, and more—to advance the President’s America First agenda." She also denounced what she described as a migrant-led crime wave during a visit to the United Kingdom.
What They Call Diplomacy
The State Department has imposed visa restrictions on Thierry Breton, a former EU commissioner who is now a private citizen, and four other Europeans who campaigned for the Digital Services Act. The law, in effect since 2022, requires digital platforms to protect minors, comply with European laws and provide transparency about algorithms. Elon Musk has used his platform, political donations and influence to oppose digital regulation, promote racist conspiracy theories and support far-right movements, including appearing at a far-right "Unite the Kingdom" rally and at an AfD rally. His platform helped spread false claims after a stabbing in Southport, England, in 2024, fueling riots. The bosses of the digital age don’t just sell outrage. They help steer it.
Steve Bannon sent Jeffrey Epstein a message in 2018 saying extremist European political parties would help the cryptocurrency industry. Bannon described himself as an adviser to far-right parties in Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary and Britain. He wrote that "we can go from 92! seats to 200" and then "shut down any crypto legislation or anything else we want," and Epstein replied, "Roger that." Bannon and people like him are now speaking for America, and the article says their impact on the international system is dramatic.
Applebaum writes that the Trump administration has used the tools of government to make money for the president, his family and allies. Steve Witkoff told European leaders in Paris in January that he was negotiating energy and mineral deals for American companies with Russia after the war, and that he mentioned BlackRock’s role in Ukraine reconstruction. Trump’s Board of Peace, whose rules let Trump name his successor, select the board and determine the mission, has sought to grant itself the power to seize Palestinian land and buildings. Jared Kushner proposed a "New Gaza" redevelopment plan and is a board member.
Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick helped negotiate access to one of the world’s largest untapped tungsten reserves in Kazakhstan for a low-profile American mining company, with $1.6 billion in federal financing. The deal benefits Trump’s sons, who are partial owners of an investment bank with a stake in the project. Trump’s sons are also negotiating private business deals in the Middle East, Europe and Asia and have invested in defense-tech companies that received Pentagon contracts or other federal funding. A White House spokesperson told the Washington Post, "There are no conflicts of interest."
The Times reported Trump earned an unprecedented $2.2 billion in the first year of his second term, much of it from cryptocurrency projects. His tariffs give him financial and personal leverage over foreign leaders, and his invasion of Venezuela gave him control of Venezuela’s oil. Fiona Hill said Trump was surrounded by people who were "quasi-thinking that they were representing American interests, but they were also representing their own."
Trump’s influence campaigns have reached Greenland and Canada too. In Greenland, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry, whom Trump called his "special envoy" to Greenland, told Trump on X that "it’s an honor to serve you in this volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the U.S." Landry wore camouflage pants, attended a business conference, tried to hand out MAGA hats and later said on Fox News that the people he met "want more U.S. involvement in Greenland." The Danish army brought blood banks to Greenland and prepared to blow up airport runways in January 2026 to thwart a possible U.S. invasion. American oil company Greenland Energy began bringing equipment to drill for oil in August without formal permission, that its investors include Ken Griffin, and Dr. Phil was commissioned to make a documentary series about the project. Larry Swets, the company’s executive chair, said the project is not related to annexation. Trump later posted an AI-generated photograph of himself over a Greenlandic village with the headline "Hello, Greenland!"
Drew Horn, who describes himself as an entrepreneur focusing on critical minerals and resource development, is planning a data center in western Greenland with a Greenlandic business partner. Horn is a former Trump national-security official and a participant in a failed 2020 coup attempt in Venezuela named Horn as one of his contacts, though Horn denied wrongdoing and wrote in The Spectator, "No, I'm Not a CIA Spy in Greenland." Horn told Reuters in April that he maintains a "dialogue" with White House officials. Julie Rademacher said American business and political operators from the Trump orbit had made Naleraq more aggressive and that she saw people openly carrying guns in Nuuk after Landry’s visit. Former Greenlandic Prime Minister Múte B. Egede has said the Danish promotion of birth control in Greenland in the 1960s and '70s, including IUDs inserted without consent, constituted "genocide."
Canada has been pressured too. Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on Canadian and Mexican goods and a 10 percent tariff on Canadian energy products, then later a new round of 50 percent tariffs on Canadian goods from "wine to hockey sticks to cement." Prime Minister Carney said Trump is "trying to break us so the U.S. can own us." American podcasters helped amplify Alberta separatism, Alberta will hold a referendum on October 19, and State Department officials have met with representatives of the Alberta Prosperity Project. Scott Bessent told a far-right podcast that Alberta is a "natural partner for the U.S." and U.S. ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra invited Tamara Lich to his Fourth of July party. Lich thanked Hoekstra, Trump and the "American people" for their support.
The Trump administration has also backed Javier Milei in Argentina with a $20 billion bailout, supported far-right politicians in Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, El Salvador, Colombia and Chile, and repurposed humanitarian agencies to benefit allies. It accepted 7,727 "refugees" from South Africa from October 2025 through June 2026, and an additional 10,000 white South Africans are on track to be accepted soon. Food for Peace was moved to the Department of Agriculture after the destruction of USAID and will distribute food to countries including El Salvador. The administration has also used CPAC, the State Department, the Pentagon and other institutions to network with revolutionary allies, and 11 of 12 members of the Fulbright exchange-student program’s board resigned after the State Department canceled nearly 200 Fulbright scholarships for American academics.
The world is adjusting to a predatory American regime. Countries are looking elsewhere for contacts, technology and trade, and Canada has signed a defense pact with the EU and defense-tech negotiations with Australia, while the EU has arranged free-trade agreements with India and Australia. In the first half of 2026, 26 world leaders visited China, including the British, Spanish, German and Canadian prime ministers. Even the final image is about power: Trump asked FIFA president Gianni Infantino to review a red card given to Folarin Balogun, FIFA lifted it, and the U.S. later lost badly to Belgium. The head of the Norwegian football association filed an ethics complaint, Hugo Rifkind said he was "startled and troubled to find myself heavily invested in Belgium winning a football game," and former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta said "Italians, French, and, yes, even the Dutch" had rooted for Belgium too.