By August 10, 2026, discussions of America in Brazil, Australia and India have unexpectedly converged on a single point: the United States is no longer seen only as the world’s largest market, a military ally or a counterweight to China, but also as a source of political and economic unpredictability. The triggers have included US tariffs, the renewed US war with Iran and Washington’s increasingly open pressure on its partners. Local reactions, however, differ. In Brazil, the main issue is sovereignty and alleged attempts to interfere in elections; in India, it is how to avoid trading strategic autonomy for unreliable trade promises; in Australia, it is whether the ANZUS and AUKUS alliances have become mechanisms for automatically drawing the country into someone else’s war.
The most prominent common theme is trade as an instrument of political coercion. In Brazil, an additional 25% US tariff on a significant share of exports is being interpreted not as an ordinary commercial dispute, but as a mixture of protectionism, ideological pressure and domestic Brazilian politics. An editorial in Folha de S.Paulo highlights the almost demonstrative mismatch between Washington’s stated grounds—Pix, ethanol, court rulings, intellectual property, corruption and the environment—and the economic logic of the measures: Brazil already runs a trade deficit with the United States. The newspaper calls these arguments more a “repertoire” of justifications for barriers than evidence of unfair practices. At the same time, it stresses a caveat characteristic of the Brazilian debate: the response should not be a symmetrical trade war. The authors call for using the crisis to open up Brazil’s economy and improve its competitiveness. (www1.folha.uol.com.br)
In India, the same issue is framed more pragmatically, but no less sharply. New Delhi received a 10% US tariff as part of a Section 301 investigation formally linked to forced labor, after India had already banned imports of goods produced using it. To Indian commentators, this sequence confirms that the procedure serves as a negotiating lever rather than as neutral protection of labor rights. An analysis in the Indian Express notes that Washington nevertheless reduced the proposed rate from 12.5% to 10%, taking India’s legislative steps into account. But this did not resolve the central question: if the rules change in response to court decisions in the United States itself and successive presidential orders, how reliable can a major bilateral agreement really be? (indianexpress.com)
Indian trade expert Ajay Srivastava states the local consensus especially clearly in a column for the Indian Express: until US trade policy returns to “legal certainty and durability,” broad concessions are dangerous, because a country could surrender permanent access to its market in exchange for tariff advantages that might disappear overnight. This is not anti-Americanism in the conventional sense. Rather, it is an Indian version of strategic autonomy: continue negotiations and purchase American goods where it is advantageous, but do not allow Washington to turn a deal into a mechanism of one-sided dependence. (indianexpress.com)
Australia’s reaction is more painful precisely because Australia is one of the United States’ closest allies. A new 12.5% duty on Australian exports was justified on the grounds that Canberra was allegedly doing too little to ban imports of goods made using forced labor. The Australian government responds that the country already has a Modern Slavery Act, while the US side has identified neither a specific company nor a specific enforcement failure. An ABC report describes the measure primarily as another wave of uncertainty for exporters: temporary tariff arrangements keep replacing one another, and even a politically loyal ally cannot be sure that previous agreements will remain in force. (abc.net.au)
This produces a shared, though differently colored, conclusion: closeness to Washington no longer guarantees predictability. In Brazil, this strengthens the language of national dignity and resistance to external pressure; in India, it bolsters arguments for diversifying markets and rejecting hasty concessions; in Australia, it fuels doubts that an alliance with America automatically provides economic protection. Significantly, a July Lowy Institute poll recorded a record-low level of Australian trust in President Donald Trump—21%—while 51% of respondents said for the first time that relations with China were more important than relations with the United States. This does not mean Australia is turning toward Beijing, but it does mean that American unpredictability is already changing the framework of the national debate. (lowyinstitute.org)
The second major theme is the US war with Iran and its cost for countries that do not make decisions in Washington but pay for them through fuel prices, logistics and security risks. The Indian press discusses the conflict primarily through the Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies pass, and through the vulnerability of Indian citizens and trade routes in the Persian Gulf. An explanatory article in the Indian Express states plainly that a return to open warfare would pose both a threat to people in the region and a severe economic blow to India. Former Indian diplomat and politician Shashi Tharoor, in his column, argues that the world increasingly sees the United States not as a stable anchor but as an “unpredictable risk” to the global balance. (indianexpress.com)
Australia’s concern is different in nature: the debate there is no longer only about the consequences of the war, but also about the extent of the country’s own involvement. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese initially supported US actions to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, but later stressed that Canberra had not been consulted before the US-Israeli strikes began and that Australia wanted de-escalation. ABC quoted his position: Australia is an important US ally, but the consequences of the war have become global, and the conflict must end. (abc.net.au)
Critics of the government go further. Lachlan Strahan, a former Australian high commissioner, writes in an analysis for Guardian Australia about the unease felt by traditional US allies: in his view, Trump launched the campaign without a clear strategy for how it should end. Experts and opposition politicians are raising an uncomfortable question: can Australia’s intelligence, aviation and military-logistics support be considered exclusively “defensive” if those capabilities free up American resources for strikes? (theguardian.com)
The Brazilian view of the war is more distant, but not indifferent. The conflict is more often assessed here through a macroeconomic lens: rising oil prices both increase the export revenues of an oil-producing country and fuel domestic inflation. Folha, reporting the IMF’s assessment, notes that Brazil is relatively better protected from an oil shock than net energy importers, but remains vulnerable to global instability. This is an important contrast with India: for one country, the US war with Iran is primarily a threat to energy security; for the other, it is a two-sided commodity shock. (www1.folha.uol.com.br)
Finally, in Brazil, the American issue has taken on a particularly acute democratic dimension. After US representatives attempted to travel to Brasília to discuss “electoral integrity,” freedom of speech and freedom of religion, Brazilian authorities did not issue them visas. The US State Department called suspicions that the mission was intended to undermine the elections baseless, but the very appearance of such a mission during an election year proved politically toxic. As Folha de S.Paulo reported, the Brazilian side saw the initiative as a risk of sowing doubts about the transparency of electronic voting. (www1.folha.uol.com.br)
This is where the three countries’ most unusual common thread becomes visible. Brazil fears that American pressure could influence domestic democratic competition; Australia worries that its military infrastructure and alliance obligations are reducing its freedom of political choice; India is trying to prevent American tariffs and trade promises from narrowing the space for its own foreign policy. Different countries, different relationships with the United States, different vulnerabilities—but one common question: how can they cooperate with America without making its decisions part of their own domestic destiny?
