Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 247 at Background Briefing.org, I'm Ian Masterson.

Today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with Trump's tariff war against Brazil with the deadline of August 1st

for President Lula to surrender or face the bullying of a 50% tariff

unless he drops charges against Trump's fellow fascist Bolsonaro,

who, like Trump, lost an election and instigated a coup attempt

to stay in power.

Joining us to assess whether Trump is motivated by a fear that the United States might eventually

follow Brazil's example of putting a presidential insurrectionist on trial is Melinda

St. Louis, the director of public

citizens' global trade watch. Since working alongside labor unions and farmer organizations in

Nicaragua fighting for fair trade policies for more than two decades, she has developed deep

expertise in trade and globalization issues and provides expert analysis of technical trade

agreements, provisions and implications for domestic policymaking to Congress and high-level

government officials, the press, and civil society partners in the United States and around the

globe. And she has an article of common dreams. Trump's bizarre authoritarian big tech-friendly tariffs on Brazil.

Then we'll look into the need to rename the Environmental Protection Agency as Trump's

Environmental Destruction Agency, following Tuesday's announcement by the EPA administrator

that they plan to kill efforts to deal with climate change

by eliminating the scientific consensus that underpins the government's legal authority to address global warming.

Joining us is Michael Gerard, a professor of professional practice at Columbia Law School,

where he teaches courses on environmental law, climate change law and

...