BRICS focuses on climate
July 8, 2025
Closing the BRICS leaders summit yesterday, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was defiant about U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to increase tariffs on BRICS collaborators: "The world has changed. We don't want an emperor." BRICS summit nations brushed Trump’s accusation that they are "anti-American, reports Reuters. (See yesterday’s post.)
Indeed, the summit was relatively subdued, notes Oliver Stuenkel in Foreign Policy. “In an attempt to avoid tariff threats from Trump, host Brazil emphasized issues such as economic development and climate rather than more contentious topics, such as the use of local currencies in intra-BRICS trade. That focus was in line with Brazil’s longtime stance on BRICS. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva likes to say the bloc is “not against anyone”; his top diplomatic advisor Celso Amorim recently argued that the group was “not the West, not the East, [but] the global south.””
The effort to increase trade within the BRICS group highlights how Trump’s tariffs are redrawing global economic relations and pushing America’s trading partners to other markets, reports the New York Times.
Speaking at the summit, UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the environment is being attacked on all fronts and called on the international community to urgently tackle the intersection of health and climate issues. (See yesterday’s post.)
Regional Relations
Colombian President Gustavo Petro calls for international action against Israel’s devastation of Gaza, in a Guardian op-ed. “Governments such as mine cannot afford to remain passive,” he writes. “We can either stand firm in defence of the legal principles that seek to prevent war and conflict, or watch helplessly as the international system collapses under the weight of unchecked power politics. Let us be protagonists together – not supplicants apart. … For the billions of people in the global south who rely on international law for protection, the stakes could not be higher.”
Petro attempted to ease tensions with the United States last month by sending a letter to President Donald Trump saying he did not intend to accuse U.S. officials of trying to overthrow his government. The confidential letter, dated June 23, was leaked to Colombian media outlets yesterday. In it Petro appears to backtrack from comments made during a speech on June 11, where he accused Secretary of State Marco Rubio of leading a plot to overthrow his government. Petro had said in the speech that “a neighboring President” had told him that Rubio was leading a plot against him, reports the Associated Press.
U.S. President Donald Trump said former Brazilian president Jair Boslonaro is the victim of a “witch-hunt” in his home country. Posting on his social media platform Truth Social yesterday, Trump claimed that ally Bolsonaro – often dubbed the “Trump of the Tropics” – is “not guilty of anything”, in an apparent reference to the numerous legal cases Bolsonaro is facing in Brazil, including allegations that he planned a coup after losing the 2022 elections. (Guardian)
Brazil
Brazil’s most revered Indigenous leader, Raoni Metuktire, has said he believes that one of Bolsonaro’s goals while in office was to “exterminate” the country’s Indigenous peoples. According to the Kayapó chief, the far-right president “encouraged invasions, mining and deforestation” in order to hand Indigenous lands over to the kubẽ (non-Indigenous people). (Guardian)
Cuba
Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Pemex, is throwing Cuba a much-needed lifeline — $166 million of crude and fuel — as the island struggles to keep its power grid operational amid its worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union, reports Bloomberg.
Deportations
The government of El Salvador has acknowledged to United Nations investigators that the U.S. Trump administration maintains control of the Venezuelan men who were deported from the U.S. to a notorious Salvadoran prison, contradicting public statements by officials in both countries. The revelation was contained in court filings Monday by lawyers for more than 100 migrants who are seeking to challenge their deportations to El Salvador’s mega-prison known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, reports the Associated Press.
The U.S. Trump administration has ended temporary protections for people from Honduras and Nicaragua in the latest phase of its effort to expel undocumented people from the country, reports the Guardian. The move will come into effect in two months and will affect an estimated 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans.
Argentina
A 49-year-old man has been identified as the son of two people disappeared by Argentina’s last dictatorship — he is the 140th missing child found by the group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. The man was reunited with his sister, Adriana Metz, who was just a year-and-a-half old when their parents were abducted. About 300 people more are believed to have been abducted as infants by the dictatorship, and remain unidentified. (Guardian)
Haiti
The landmark Port-au-Prince Hotel Oloffson, “a favorite haunt of writers and artists that survived dictatorship, coups and a devastating earthquake and was immortalized by novelist Graham Greene was burned to the ground by gangs over the weekend, after months of resisting gang threats and attacks that forced thousands in its surrounding Carrefour Feuilles neighborhood to abandon their homes and flee, reports the Miami Herald.
Journalists are unable to visit the hotel and verify the damage because gangs control the area, making it inaccessible, reports the Associated Press. The owner of the hotel verified the damage with drones. Witnesses said the attack on the area began late on Saturday, and police and gangs exchanged heavy gunfire.
“The hotel’s wooden latticework, turrets and spires made it a classic example of the gingerbread Caribbean architectural style of homes that adorned some older residential parts of Haiti’s capital,” reports the Guardian. “The gingerbread school emerged in the 19th century from a movement of architects studying in France who were inspired to design tropical-style mansions.”