How does politics in Brazil threaten our national security?

Dear Editor,

Tariffs work. They really do.

Provided you have an alternative.

Have you ever seen a Volkswagen Amarok or a Peugeot Landtrek cruising down Van Dyke or Lapeer Road?

Of course you haven’t.

Why?

They are, respectively, German and French made pickups and in 1964 we got mad at the French and Germans.

It seems those two countries, in an attempt to protect their poultry industry, put a tariff on poultry imports. However, our poultry industry was booming and their protectionist tariff annoyed us.

So, in 1964 President Lyndon Baines Johnson imposed substantial tariffs on chicken, potato starch, dextrin, brandy and, of course, light trucks. It came to be known as the chicken tax.

Eventually we kissed and made up with the French and the Germans and the chicken tax went away. However, the 25% tariff on pickups made by our European friends stayed.

With the average new pickup hovering around $60,000 these days, the Germans and French can hardly compete when they have to price the same vehicle at $75,000.

However, when you place a tariff on something we don’t have a real alternative for, it becomes nothing more than a sales tax on the American consumer.

Take coffee for instance.

Two thirds of Americans drink an average of three cups of coffee a day. That worked out 3.3 billion pounds of coffee in 2019-20. Almost all of that is imported.

Between them, Puerto Rico and Hawaii produce 19.9 million pounds of coffee annually. Meanwhile, Americans go through 21.5 million pounds of coffee daily.

So, it makes almost no sense to put a tariff on something that we consume in vast quantities and cannot produce ourselves.

And yet, the current administration is threatening to impose a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports to the U.S

It’s not like Brazil is taking us to the cleaners like those godless Canadians. In fact, the U.S. sold $6.8 billion worth of stuff to Brazil last year than it bought from us.
According to the presidential logic that the Canadians are bad because we buy more of their stuff than they buy of ours – despite the fact our population is nearly 10 times theirs – we should be buying another $6.8 billion worth of Brazilian stuff.

So why are we threatening to kick sand in Brazil’s face, if we don’t have a trade deficit with them? Evidently our president is not happy with how Brazilian courts have treated their former president, Jair Bolsonaro, who is accused of plotting a coup. Apparently, Brazilians take a dim view of that sort of thing.
We’ve been threatening a 25% or higher tariffs on Mexico and Canada saying their failure to stop illegal immigration and drug trafficking, as well as their trade defects, are a threat to our national security.

Someone explain to me how the internal politics of Brazil in any way is a threat to our national security? I’d really like to know why I should pay more for my morning cup of coffee simply because our president doesn’t like how Brazil runs its courts.

— Phil Foley.
Attica Twp.