by Jack Nicas
Correspondent in Brazil.
July 28, 2025
from NYTimes Website

Article also HERE...








We explain why leaders

are talking so much about

independence...

The people who run the largest nations in the Western Hemisphere are insisting on something strangely mundane. They have found it necessary - and popular - to point out that they govern sovereign nations.

That was not previously a detail that required much clarification.

Then President Trump arrived.

He has made repeated demands of Mexico, Canada, Brazil and other nations, including about,

• whom they can trade with

• whom they can investigate

• how they secure themselves

He has tried to use tariffs, trade investigations and threats of force to make them obey.

As a result, sovereignty is having a moment.

Pushing back

Trump made his name bossing others around. It was the entire concept of "The Apprentice."

His governing style takes the same shape:

He expects deference...

In his second term, he has proved even more willing to push America's neighbors - and those nations have not taken it well.
 

• Mexico:

  Trump has flayed its handling of immigration, drugs and trade

   

  President Claudia Sheinbaum has in turn stressed that Mexico is a sovereign nation at least 30 times during her daily news conferences this year.

"Mexico is not subordinate to anyone," she said last month.

 

• Canada:

  After Trump said his northern neighbor should become the 51^st state, Mark Carney won Canada's election for prime minister in a landslide by promising to defend his nation from Trump's "threats to our sovereignty."

  
   

• Panama:

  Trump promised to "take back" the Panama Canal. President José Raúl Mulino responded that,

"the sovereignty and independence of our country are not negotiable."

 

• Colombia:

  Trump threatened to place 50 percent tariffs on Colombian imports after President Gustavo Petro refused to accept deportation flights.

   

  In a rebuke, Petro responded:

"I don't shake hands with white enslavers."

 

• Brazil:

  This month, Trump threatened to impose 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian imports to try to get Brazil to drop the criminal case against its right-wing former president, Jair Bolsonaro, a Trump ally.

   

  He is charged with attempting a coup after he lost the 2022 election.

   

  Trump calls the case a "witch hunt."

Since the feud began this month, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil has covered his social media accounts in references to sovereignty, given fiery speeches across Brazil promising that his nation won't be pushed around and taken to wearing a hat that says "Brazil belongs to Brazilians."

"He was elected to take care of the American people," Lula said of Trump this month.

 

"The Brazilian people know how to take care of themselves."

The consequences

Yet Trump's demands have yielded some results.

To try to avoid tariffs,

Mexico and Canada have promised to crack down on drugs and illegal immigration at their borders.

 

They're trying to import less from China. And Mexico sent 29 cartel leaders wanted by American authorities to the United States.

Colombia quickly capitulated and accepted deportation flights.

 

Panama let the United States expand its military presence at the canal, reduced its business with China and allowed BlackRock, an American investment company, to buy two critical ports near the canal.

Brazil, however, appears less likely to budge.

 

Its government views the criminal case that Trump wants to kill as central to the nation's democracy. Brazil's Supreme Court responded to Trump's threats by putting Bolsonaro in an ankle monitor. And Lula has promised retaliatory tariffs.

That could make Brazil the test case on what happens when Trump meets a sovereign nation that doesn't follow orders...