Venting Hypocrisy At a BRICS meeting this past weekend, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva characterized President Trump’s use of tariffs as a tool of “blackmail.” The formal definition of blackmail involves demanding benefit from someone in exchange for not revealing compromising or damaging information about them. In other words, if Brazil did not have compromising problems like historically applying high duties on imports from the U.S. as it does on ethanol, there would be less leverage against his country in the trade war.  China’s Ambassador to India, Xu Feihong, told his Indian audience that the U.S. has long benefited from free trade, but now uses tariffs as a weapon to gain exorbitant demands...

TAGS – North America, Macroeconomics