Brazil's Lula sends defiant message to Trump amid US military build-up in Caribbean|Venezuela|tariff

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said he is “fully ready to defend Brazil’s interests” in his anticipated meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Malaysia. Speaking in Jakarta, Lula called the 50% U.S. tariffs on Brazilian exports a “mistake without factual basis,” pointing to a $410 billion trade surplus Washington has enjoyed with Brazil over 15 years. He said his goal is to “prove with numbers” that the tariffs were wrong and to explain why sanctions against Brazil’s Supreme Court judges “lacked any justification.”