Latest news with #politicalbacklash
CTV News
19-07-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Trump's tariff threat pushes Lula's popularity and worsens legal troubles for Brazil's ex-leader
Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva gestures upon arriving at an event on the economy at the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) SAO PAULO — U.S. President Donald Trump may have thought that pressuring Brazil with higher tariffs would help his ally, the country's former President Jair Bolsonaro, but the move apparently backfired. Last week, Trump sent a letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva threatening a 50 per cent import tax and directly linking the decision to Bolsonaro's trial, which he called a 'witch hunt.' 'This trial should end immediately!' Trump wrote Thursday evening in a second letter, this one addressed to Bolsonaro. He added that he had 'strongly voiced' his disapproval through his tariff policy. Rather than backing down, Brazil's Supreme Court escalated the case, worsening Bolsonaro's legal troubles. On Friday morning, federal police raided Bolsonaro's home and political office. The former president was ordered to wear an ankle monitor, banned from using social media, and hit with other restrictions. Meanwhile, President Lula — who was facing higher unpopularity, growing opposition in Congress and increasing risks to his likely reelection bid — seems to have gained politically from the situation. Now the 79-year-old leftist Lula, in office for the third non-consecutive term of his long political career, is seeing renewed acceptance, congressional support against Trump and pleas to run one last time to defend Brazil's sovereignty. Back in the game Lula has appeared more energized in public since Trump's announcement. At a national students assembly Thursday, he wore a blue cap reading 'Sovereign Brazil Unites Us' — a contrast to MAGA's red cap. 'A gringo will not give orders to this president,' he told the crowd, and called the tariff hike 'unacceptable blackmail.' The impact on Lula is not a first. Trump's actions targeting other countries have boosted ideological rivals in Canada and Australia instead of strengthening his allies at a local level. Private pollster Atlas said Tuesday that Lula's unpopularity had reversed course after his spat with Trump. Lula's job approval went from at 47.3 per cent in June to 49.7 per cent since the tariffs battle began. The poll of more than 2,800 people was conducted July 11-13, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points. The study also said 62.2 per cent of Brazilians think the higher tariffs are unjustified while 36.8 per cent agree with the measure. Even Bolsonaro's former vice president, Sen. Hamilton Mourão, criticized Trump's move as undue interference in Brazil's politics, though he said he agreed the trial against the far-right leader is biased against him. Social media analytics firm Palver analyzed 20,000 messages about Trump on WhatsApp, Brazil's most widely used communication platform, a day after Trump's announcement. Its analysis said right-wing users dominated viral content, but spontaneous conversations leaned left, mocking Bolsonaro as submissive and defending Brazil's sovereignty. 'Trump has put Lula back in the game,' said Thomas Traumann, an independent political consultant and former spokesman for the Brazilian presidency who only weeks ago argued that Lula had lost his front-runner status in the presidential race as he struggled to deliver on his promises on the economy. 'Trump handed it to Lula on a silver platter,' Traumann said. Business leaders who until recently sided with Bolsonaro are having to court Lula to negotiate with Trump. Agribusiness, Brazil's largest economic sector and a traditional right-wing stronghold, united to criticize the U.S. president's move. Industry groups were quick to denounce the tariffs as politically motivated and lacking any commercial justification. National outrage 'In general, with the major exception of a more radical conservative wing, (Trump's move) generated national outrage for violating Brazil's sovereignty,' lawmaker Arnaldo Jardim, a member of the congressional agricultural caucus, told The Associated Press. Jardim, who pushed for the approval of a reciprocity bill that could be used by Lula if there's no agreement until the Aug. 1 deadline, hardly sides with the president. 'Even among sectors that initially thought this could benefit Bolsonaro, many had to reconsider their positions,' he said. Top congressional leaders who recently helped nix a Lula decree to raise a transactions tax were moving toward a head-on collision with him. After Trump's announcement, they signed a joint statement agreeing with Lula's promise to use the reciprocity law against the U.S. In another change, Brazil's Congress decided to start moving on Lula's plan to give an income tax break to millions of poorer Brazilians. Many politicians said that such initiative was dead after Lula became the first president in three decades to have a decree annulled by lawmakers. Bolsonaro remains on trial At the Supreme Court, Bolsonaro is only getting deeper into trouble as his trial continues. Earlier this week, Brazil's chief prosecutor called for a guilty verdict, accusing the former president of leading an armed criminal organization, attempting to stage a coup and attempting violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, among other charges. The defense will next likely present its case in the coming weeks, after which the panel of Supreme Court justices in the trial will vote on whether to convict or acquit him. The former president also suffered more consequences — the court's latest restrictions on Bolsonaro, including the ankle monitor, are part of a second investigation against one of his sons, Eduardo Bolsonaro, a Brazilian lawmaker who currently lives in the United States and is known for his close ties to Trump. He has been under scrutiny for allegedly working with U.S. authorities to impose sanctions against Brazilian officials. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversees criminal cases against Bolsonaro, said his and his son's actions attempted to pressure the Brazilian judiciary by involving the U.S. The court's decision cited both Trump's letter to Lula and several social media posts by the Bolsonaros in support of sanctions against Brazilian officials and speaking favorably about tariffs. 'A sovereign country like Brazil will always know how to defend its democracy and sovereignty,' de Moraes said. 'The judiciary will not allow any attempt to subject the functioning of the Supreme Court to the scrutiny of another state through hostile acts.' Jair Bolsonaro told journalists in Brasilia, the country's capital, that the ankle monitoring was a 'supreme humiliation.' 'I never thought about leaving Brazil, I never thought about going to an embassy, but the precautionary measures are because of that,' the former president said. In a statement, Eduardo Bolsonaro accused de Moraes of trying to criminalize Trump and the U.S. government. 'Since he has no power over them, he decided to make my father a hostage,' the younger Bolsonaro said of the judge. Gabriela Sá Pessoa And Mauricio Savarese, The Associated Press
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'Big tent party': DNC chair shrugs off Mamdani's refusal to condemn 'globalize the intifada' slogan
Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), dismissed concerns over NYC Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani's unwillingness to explicitly condemn the slogan "globalize the intifada," adding in an interview with PBS that the key to developing a winning coalition is through welcoming people with whom you disagree. After Mamdani's monumental upset in the Democratic primary election for New York City mayor over former Governor Andrew Cuomo, he garnered backlash for refusing to condemn a phrase used to describe violent Palestinian uprisings against Israel. The slogan, "globalize the intifada," has become a rallying cry for anti-Israel protesters in the United States ever since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attacks against hundreds of innocent Israelis. "There's no candidate in this party that I agree 100% of the time with, to be honest with you. There are things that I don't agree with Mamdani that he said, but at the end of the day, I always believe, as a Democratic Party chair in Minnesota for the last 14 years and now the chair of the DNC, that you win through addition," Martin said during a Wednesday interview with PBS NewsHour. Top Democrats, Media Demand Zohran Mamdani Condemn 'Globalize The Intifada' Phrase "You win by bringing people into your coalition. We have conservative-Democrats, we have centrist-Democrats, we have labor-progressives like me, and we have this new brand of Democrat which is the leftists," Martin continued. "We win by bringing people into that coalition and at the end of the day, for me, that's the type of party we're going to lead. We are a big tent party." Martin conceded that sometimes this type of coalition building "leads to dissent and debate," but, he noted, such "differences of opinion" should be celebrated and recognized as a way to move the party forward. Read On The Fox News App During a podcast last month, Mamdani referred to the controversial slogan as "a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights." When given another chance to explicitly condemn the phrase on NBC's "Meet The Press," the NYC mayoral candidate once again refused to do so. "That's not language that I use," Mamdani told NBC's Kristen Welker. "The language that I use and the language that I will continue to use to lead this city is that which speaks clearly to my intent, which is an intent grounded in a belief in universal human rights." Hakeem Jeffries Says Nyc Hopeful Mamdani Needs To 'Clarify' His Position On 'Globalize The Intifada' When Welker doubled-down on whether Mamdami would "actually condemn" the slogan, which Welker pointed out a lot of people perceive as a call to violence against Jews, Mamdani responded that he has spoken with numerous Jewish New Yorkers about their fears of anti-Semitism and said he would be committing to increasing "anti-hate crime programming" in the city by 800%. "Ultimately, what I think I need to show is the ability to not only talk about something but to tackle it and to make clear that there's no room for antisemitism in this city," Mamdani responded. "And we have to root out that bigotry, and ultimately we do that through the actions, and that is the mayor I will be, one that protects Jewish New Yorkers and lives up to that commitment through the work that I do." Before turning to a different topic, Welker, for a third time, sought to get Mamdani on the record over whether he condemned the controversial slogan. "Why not just condemn it?" Welker asked. "My concern is to start to walk down the line of language and making clear what language I believe is permissible or impermissible. Takes me into a place similar to that of the president who is looking to do those very kinds of things, putting people in jail for writing an Op-Ed, putting them in jail for protesting," Mamdani responded. "Ultimately, it's not language that I use, it's language I understand there are concerns about, and what I will do is showcase my vision for this city through my words and my actions."Original article source: 'Big tent party': DNC chair shrugs off Mamdani's refusal to condemn 'globalize the intifada' slogan
Khaleej Times
30-05-2025
- Business
- Khaleej Times
Why Gen-Z is voting differently and what it means for global politics
South Korea's young women are expected to lead a broad political backlash against the main conservative party during the presidential elections on June 3, punishing it for months of chaos. Multitudes of young men, though, are unlikely to join them. In democracies worldwide, a political gender divide is intensifying among Gen Z voters, with young men voting for right-wing parties and young women leaning left, a break from pre-pandemic years when both tended to vote for progressives. Recent elections spanning North America, Europe, and Asia show this trend is either consolidating or accelerating, with angry, frustrated men in their 20s breaking to the right. First-time South Korean voter Lee Jeong-min is one of them. He says he will vote for the right-wing Reform Party's candidate, Lee Jun-seok, on June 3. The candidate vows to shut down the ministry of gender equality, speaking to an issue that resonates with men like Lee, who particularly resents that only men have to do military service. 'As a young man, I find this to be one of the most unfair realities of living in Korea. At the prime of their youth — at 21 or 22 years old — young men, unlike their female peers, are unable to fully engage in various activities in society because they have to serve 18 months in the military.' In South Korea, almost 30 per cent of men aged 18-29 plan to back the Reform Party compared with just 3 per cent of young women, according to a Gallup Korea poll this month. Overall, more than half of the men back right-wing parties while almost half the women want the left-wing Democratic Party candidate to win. The divergence shrinks for older age groups. Political economist Soohyun Lee, of King's College London, said many young South Korean men felt unable to meet society's expectations: find a good job, get married, buy a home, and start a family. And they blame feminism, many believing that women are preferred for jobs. With negligible immigration in South Korea, Lee said, 'women become the convenient scapegoat'. ANGRY YOUNG MEN In South Korea and other democracies, Gen Z men are seeing an erosion of their relative advantage, especially since the pandemic — to the point where in a few countries the gender pay gap among 20-somethings favours young women. European Union (EU) data shows one of them is France, where men aged 18-34 voted in larger numbers for Marine le Pen's far-right party than women in last year's legislative elections. In the UK, where more young men than women vote conservative, males aged 16-24 are more likely to be neither employed nor in education than their female counterparts, official data shows. In the West, young men blame immigration as well as diversity programmes for job competition. In Germany's general election in February, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) won a record 20.8 per cent of the vote, tugged along by an undercurrent of support from young men — though the leader of the party is a woman. Men aged 18-24 voted 27 per cent for the AfD while young women ran to the other end of the political spectrum, voting 35 per cent for the far-left Linke party, according to official voting data. 'A lot of young men are falling for right-wing propaganda because they're upset, they have the feeling they're losing power,' said 18-year-old Molly Lynch, a Berliner who voted for Linke, drawn by its stand on climate change and economic inequality. 'But, it's actually losing power over women that wasn't actually equal in the first place.' The gender divide is not restricted to Gen Z, voters born since the mid-to-late 1990s. Millennials, who are in their 30s and early 40s, have felt the winds of change for longer. In Canada last month, men aged 35-54 voted 50 per cent for opposition conservatives in an election turned upside down by US President Donald Trump's tariffs on his northern neighbour. The Liberals, who had been braced for defeat, rode an anti-Trump wave back to power, thanks in large part to women voters. 'It tends to be men who have a bit more life experience and are now in that situation where they're saying, 'This isn't working out for me and I want change',' said Darrell Bricker, global chief executive of public affairs at polling firm Ipsos. Nik Nanos, founder of Canadian polling outfit Nanos Research, agreed, saying social media was accelerating democracy's 'angry young men symptom', especially in areas where blue collar jobs have dried up. A FOREVER WAR? Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, which promised a manufacturing renaissance and attacked diversity programmes, also resonated with young white and Hispanic men, but turned off young women, fuelling the country's big political gender gap. Roughly half of men aged 18-29 voted for Trump, while 61 per cent of young women went for his opponent, Kamala Harris. Young Black voters of both genders still overwhelmingly backed Harris. In Australia, which went to the polls this month, the Gen Z war did not play out at the ballot box. There was no clear divergence, with compulsory voting perhaps helping to explain why radicalised gender politics have not taken root. 'It tends to iron out extreme ideas, ideologies,' said political scientist Intifar Chowdury of Australian National University. So how does the Gen Z war end? Pollsters said it could drag on unless governments addressed core issues such as home affordability and precarious employment. One cited young men's health as another policy challenge, especially high suicide rates. Lee, of King's College, said the divide could make consensus on over-arching tax and welfare reforms harder to achieve. 'If the future generation is ever so divided along the lines of gender and then refuses to engage with each other to build social consensus, I do not think we can successfully tackle these huge issues,' she said. — Reuters
Japan Times
29-05-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
How a Gen Z gender divide is reshaping democracy
South Korea's young women are expected to lead a broad political backlash against the main conservative party during the presidential election on June 3, punishing it for months of chaos. Multitudes of young men, though, are unlikely to join them. In democracies worldwide, a political gender divide is intensifying among Generation Z voters, with young men voting for right-leaning parties and young women leaning left, a break from prepandemic years when both tended to vote for progressives. Recent elections spanning North America, Europe and Asia show this trend is either consolidating or accelerating, with angry, frustrated men in their 20s breaking to the right. First-time South Korean voter Lee Jeong-min is one of them. He says he will vote for the right-leaning Reform Party's candidate, Lee Jun-seok, on June 3. Lee, the candidate, vows to shut down the ministry of gender equality, speaking to an issue that resonates with men like Lee, the voter, who particularly resents that only men have to do military service. "As a young man, I find this to be one of the most unfair realities of living in Korea. At the prime of their youth — at 21 or 22 years old — young men, unlike their female peers, are unable to fully engage in various activities in society because they have to serve 18 months in the military." In South Korea, almost 30% of men age 18 to 29 plan to back the Reform Party compared with just 3% of young women, according to a Gallup Korea poll this month. Overall, more than half of the men back right-leaning parties while almost half the women want the left-leaning Democratic Party candidate to win. The divergence shrinks for older age groups. Political economist Soohyun Lee, of King's College London, said many young South Korean men felt unable to meet society's expectations: find a good job, get married, buy a home and start a family. And they blame feminism, many believing that women are preferred for jobs. With negligible immigration in South Korea, Lee said, "women become the convenient scapegoat." Angry young men In South Korea and other democracies, Gen Z men are seeing an erosion of their relative advantage, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic — to the point where in a few countries, the gender pay gap among 20-somethings favors young women. EU data shows one of them is France, where men age 18 to 34 voted in larger numbers for Marine le Pen's far-right party than women in last year's legislative elections. A carnival float depicting an exchange between Gen Z and baby boomers, is presented ahead of the traditional Rose Monday Carnival parade in Cologne, Germany, on Feb. 25. | REUTERS In the U.K., where more young men than women vote conservative, males age 16 to 24 are more likely to be neither employed, nor in education than female counterparts, official data shows. In the West, young men blame immigration as well as diversity programs for competition for jobs. In Germany's general election in February, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) won a record 20.8% of the vote, tugged along by an undercurrent of support from young men — though the leader of the party is a woman. Men age 18 to 24 voted 27% for the AfD while young women ran to the other end of the political spectrum, voting 35% for the far-left Linke party, according to official voting data. "A lot of young men are falling for rightwing propaganda because they're upset, they have the feeling they're losing power," said Molly Lynch, 18, a Berliner who voted for Linke, drawn by its stand on climate change and economic inequality. "But it's actually losing power over women that wasn't actually equal in the first place." The gender divide is not restricted to Gen Z, or voters born since the mid-to-late 1990s. Millennials, who are in their 30s and early 40s, have felt the winds of change for longer. In Canada last month, men age 35 to 54 voted 50% for opposition conservatives in an election turned upside down by U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs on his northern neighbor. The Liberals, which had been braced for defeat, rode an anti-Trump wave back to power, thanks in large part to female voters. "It tends to be men who have a bit more life experience and are now in that situation where they're saying, 'This isn't working out for me, and I want change,'" said Darrell Bricker, global chief executive of public affairs at polling firm Ipsos. Nik Nanos, founder of Canadian polling outfit Nanos Research, agreed, saying social media was accelerating democracy's "angry young men symptom," especially in areas where blue collar jobs have dried up. A forever war? Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, which promised a manufacturing renaissance and attacked diversity programs, also resonated with young white and Hispanic men, but turned off young women, fueling the country's big political gender gap. Roughly half of men age 18 to 29 voted for Trump, while 61% of young women went for his opponent, Kamala Harris. Young Black voters of both genders still overwhelmingly backed Harris. In Australia, which went to the polls this month, the Gen Z war did not play out at the ballot box. There was no clear divergence, with compulsory voting perhaps helping to explain why radicalized gender politics have not taken root. "It tends to iron out extreme ideas, ideologies," said political scientist Intifar Chowdury of Australian National University. So how does the Gen Z war end? Pollsters said it could drag on unless governments addressed core issues such as home affordability and precarious employment. One cited young men's health as another policy challenge, especially high suicide rates. Lee, of King's College, said the divide could make consensus on over-arching tax and welfare reforms harder to achieve. "If the future generation is ever so divided along the lines of gender and then refuses to engage with each other to build social consensus, I do not think we can successfully tackle these huge issues," she said.
Bloomberg
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Swedish Ministers Face Pressure Over Undeclared Shareholdings
Sweden's government faces a political backlash after several ministers were found to own stock in sectors they decide on, further tarnishing the Nordic image of low corruption after a similar scandal in neighboring Norway. The involved ministers have had formal complains lodged against them in the parliament's powerful Committee on the Constitution and may potentially face a vote of no confidence by lawmakers. All have denied willful wrongdoing.
