By ELÉONORE HUGHES and EDUARDO FRANÇOIS, Associated Press

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Sunday pushed back against a 50% tariff on Brazilian imported goods to the United States, arguing that it was “political” and “illogical.”

Lula said in a New York Times op-ed that his government is open to negotiating anything that can bring mutual benefits. “But Brazil’s democracy and sovereignty are not on the table,” he said.

U.S. President Donald Trump imposed the tariff on Brazil in July, citing what he called a “witch hunt” against former President Jair Bolsonaro, who at the time stood accused of trying to illegally hang onto power.

The trial came to an end on Thursday after a panel of Supreme Court justices ruled that Bolsonaro had attempted a coup after his 2022 electoral defeat to Lula, sparking fears of further U.S. measures against Brazil.

Lula said he was proud of the Supreme Court for its “historic decision” which safeguards Brazil’s institutions, the democratic rule of law and is not a “witch hunt.”

“(The ruling) followed months of investigations that uncovered plans to assassinate me, the vice president and a Supreme Court justice,” Lula said.

Lula added that the tariff increase was “not only misguided but illogical,” citing the surplus of $410 billion in bilateral trade in goods and services the U.S. has accumulated over the past 15 years.

The op-ed is a sign that Brazil is bracing for more possible sanctions after the Supreme Court’s decision.

After Thursday’s ruling, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X that Trump’s government “will respond accordingly.”

Brazil’s Foreign Ministry called Rubio’s comments an inappropriate threat that wouldn’t intimidate the government, saying the country’s judiciary is independent and that Bolsonaro was granted due process.

Bolsonaro on Sunday briefly left his home in Brasilia where he is under house arrest to undergo a medical procedure at a nearby hospital, his first public appearance since Thursday’s ruling.

Escorted by police, Bolsonaro went to the DF Star hospital in Brazil’s capital in the morning for procedures related to skin lesions — a temporary release granted by Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Sept. 8.

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He was later discharged, doctors from the hospital said in a statement. Medical staff removed eight skin lesions that will be sent for analysis to establish a definitive diagnosis and assess the need for further treatment.

The 70-year-old far-right politician was placed under house arrest in early August, after de Moraes said that Bolsonaro had violated precautionary measures imposed on him in the context of the coup trial. He had already been wearing an ankle monitor.

In late August, de Moraes increased security measures further and ordered that police conduct inspections of all vehicles leaving Bolsonaro’s residence and monitor the exterior of the house.

After the medical visit, Bolsonaro must file a certificate of attendance, indicating the date and times of the appointments, to the Supreme Court.

Bolsonaro’s son Carlos took to social media to complain about what he deemed to be excessive policing around his father’s trip to the hospital.

“I’m with my father and witnessing the continuation of the biggest circus in Brazilian history,” he wrote on X. “A convoy with more than 20 men ostensibly armed with rifles (…) just to promote the humiliation of an honest man.”

Die-hard supporters of Bolsonaro awaited the ex-president when he arrived at the hospital on Sunday and greeted him with shouts of “Amnesty now!” The chant is in reference to the push of Bolsonaro’s allies in Congress to grant the former president some kind of amnesty.

“We’re here to provide spiritual and psychological support,” said Deusélis Filho, 46, the president of a group of Bolsonaro supporters called Influencers of Brazil.

Thursday’s sentence doesn’t mean that Bolsonaro will immediately go to prison. The court panel has now up to 60 days to publish the ruling. Once it does, Bolsonaro’s lawyers have five days to file motions for clarification.

His lawyers have said that they will try to appeal both the conviction and sentence before the full Supreme Court of 11 justices, although some experts think it’s unlikely to be accepted.

Eléonore Hughes reported from Rio de Janeiro.

By HILLEL ITALIE

At a time when its leadership is in question and its mission challenged, the Library of Congress has named a new U.S. poet laureate, the much-honored author and translator Arthur Sze.

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The library announced Monday that the 74-year-old Sze had been appointed to a one-year term, starting this fall. The author of 12 poetry collections and recipient last year of a lifetime achievement award from the library, he succeeds Ada Limón, who had served for three years. Previous laureates also include Joy Harjo, Louise Glück and Billy Collins.

Speaking during a recent Zoom interview with The Associated Press, Sze acknowledged some misgivings when Rob Casper, who heads the library’s poetry and literature center, called him in June about becoming the next laureate. He wondered about the level of responsibilities and worried about the upheaval since President Donald Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden in May. After thinking about it overnight, he called Casper back and happily accepted.

“I think it was the opportunity to give something back to poetry, to something that I’ve spent my life doing,” he explained, speaking from his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “So many people have helped me along the way. Poetry has just helped me grow so much, in every way.”

Sze’s new job begins during a tumultuous year for the library, a 200-year-old, nonpartisan institution that holds a massive archive of books published in the United States. Trump abruptly fired Hayden after conservative activists accused her of imposing a “woke” agenda, criticism that Trump has expressed often as he seeks sweeping changes at the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian museums and other cultural institutions.

Hayden’s ouster was sharply criticized by congressional Democrats, leaders in the library and scholarly community and such former laureates as Limón and Harjo. It also led to a debate over who has the authority to decide on an interim replacement.

Although the White House announced that it had named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting librarian, daily operations are being run by a longtime official at the library, Robert Randolph Newlen. Events such as the annual National Book Festival have continued without interruption or revision.

Laureates are forbidden to take political positions, although the tradition was breached in 2003 when Collins publicly stated his objections to President George W. Bush’s push for war against Iraq.

Newlen is identified in Monday’s announcement as acting librarian, a position he was in line for according to the institution’s guidelines. He praised Sze, whose influences range from ancient Chinese poets to Wallace Stevens, for his “distinctly American” portraits of the Southwest landscapes and for his “great formal innovation.”

“Like Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, Sze forges something new from a range of traditions and influences — and the result is a poetry that moves freely throughout time and space,” his statement reads in part.

Sze’s official title is poet laureate consultant in poetry, a 1985 renaming of a position established in 1937 as consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress. The mission is loosely defined as a kind of literary ambassador, to “raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry.” Initiatives have included Robert Pinsky’s “Favorite Poem Project,” for which the public would share thoughts on works of their choosing, and Limón’s “You Are Here,” which included poetry installations at national parks.

Sze wants to focus on a passion going back more than a half-century to his undergraduate years at the University of California, Berkeley — translation. He remembers reading some English-language editions of Chinese poetry, finding the work “antiquated and dated” and deciding to translate some of it himself, writing out the Chinese characters and engaging with them “on a much deeper level” than he had expected. Besides his own poetry, he has published “The Silk Dragon: Translations from the Chinese.”

“I personally learned my own craft of writing poetry through translating poetry,” he says. “I often think that people think of poetry as intimidating, or difficult, which isn’t necessarily true. And I think one way to deepen the appreciation of poetry is to approach it through translation.”

Sze is a New York City native and son of Chinese immigrants who in such collections as “Sight Lines” and “Compass Rose” explores themes of cultural and environmental diversity and what he calls “coexisting.” In a given poem, he might shift from rocks above a pond to people begging in a subway, from a firing squad in China to Thomas Jefferson’s plantation in Virginia. His many prizes include the National Book Award for “Sight Lines” and such lifetime achievement honors as the Jackson Poetry Prize and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

He loves poetry from around the world but feels at home writing in English, if only for the “richness of the vocabulary” and the wonders of its origins.

“I was just looking at the word ‘ketchup,’ which started from southern China, went to Malaysia, was taken to England, where it became a tomato-based sauce, and then, of course, to America,” he says. “And I was just thinking days ago, that’s a word we use every day without recognizing its ancestry, how it’s crossed borders, how it’s entered into the English language and enriched it.”

By KELVIN CHAN, AP Business Writer

LONDON (AP) — China accused Nvidia on Monday of violating the country’s antimonopoly laws and said it would step up scrutiny of the world’s leading chipmaker, escalating tensions with Washington as the two countries held trade talks this week.

Chinese regulators said a preliminary investigation found that Nvidia didn’t comply with conditions imposed when it purchased Mellanox Technologies, a network and data transmission company.

The one-sentence statement from the State Administration for Market Regulation statement did not mention any punishment, but said it would carry out “further investigation.”

An Nvidia spokesperson said, “We comply with the law in all respects. We will continue to cooperate with all relevant government agencies as they evaluate the impact of export controls on competition in the commercial markets.”

Regulators said in December that they were investigating the company for suspected violations stemming from the $6.9 billion acquisition of Mellanox. The deal was completed in 2020 after the Chinese regulator gave conditional approval for Nvidia to buy the Israeli company.

The announcement, which came as the two sides held trade talks in Spain, is the latest tit-for-tat move between Washington and Beijing in their trade battle over technology focusing on semiconductors and the equipment to make them.

On Saturday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said it was carrying out an antidumping investigation into certain analog IC chips imported from the U.S., including commodity chips commonly made by companies such as Texas Instruments and ON Semiconductor.

The ministry also announced a separate antidiscrimination probe into U.S. measures against China’s chip sector.

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A day earlier, the U.S. had sanctioned two Chinese companies accused of acquiring equipment for major Chinese chipmaker SMIC.

The talks in Madrid between U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in Madrid concluded Monday with Bessent telling reporters the two sides reached a framework deal for U.S. ownership of TikTok. However, details were scant and Chinese negotiators provided no confirmation of a deal.

It’s the fourth round of discussions after meetings in London, Geneva and Stockholm. The two governments have agreed to several 90-day pauses on a series of increasing reciprocal tariffs, staving off an all-out trade war.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia has become central to the U.S.-China trade war, as the two sides battle for tech supremacy. The artificial intelligence boom has fueled demand for the Nvidia’s advanced processors, making it the world’s most valuable company.

The company has faced restrictions on chip exports to China imposed by President Joe Biden’s administration that were then reinforced by President Donald Trump. Nvidia won approval in July from the Trump administration to sell China its H20 graphics processing unit, which is less powerful and designed to comply with U.S. export curbs.

By COLLIN BINKLEY, AP Education Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is redirecting nearly $500 million in federal funding toward historically Black colleges and tribal colleges, a one-time investment covered primarily by cuts to other colleges serving large numbers of minority students.

The Education Department announced the funding boost days after cutting $350 million from other grants, mostly from programs reserved for colleges that have large numbers of Hispanic students. Agency leaders said those grants were unconstitutional because they’re available only to colleges with certain minority enrollment thresholds.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the changes will redirect money away from “from ineffective and discriminatory programs toward those which support student success.”

“The Department has carefully scrutinized our federal grants, ensuring that taxpayers are not funding racially discriminatory programs but those programs which promote merit and excellence in education,” McMahon said in a statement.

The department is also redirecting about $60 million toward funding for charter schools and $137 million toward American history and civics grants. President Donald Trump in January issued an executive action ordering the agency to repurpose federal money toward charter schools and other school choice initiatives.

It amounts to a one-time federal funding boost of 48% increase for HBCUs and it more than doubles funding for tribal colleges and universities, the department said.

The department is flexing its power to repurpose discretionary funding to match the president’s priorities — made possible through a stopgap funding bill passed by Congress this year that gives the executive branch more authority over spending decisions.

Trump has long called himself a champion of HBCUs. During his first term, Congress added $250 million a year for HBCUs. This year Trump signed an executive action that pledges an annual White House summit, an advisory board and other support for HBCUs.

The Education Department said the money comes from programs found to be “not in the best interest of students and families.” It previously said the other minority-serving grants would be redirected to programs that do not rely on racial quotas.

A person familiar with the decision said money is also being directed away from programs that support gifted and talented programs, magnet schools, international education and teacher training. Most of those programs would be zeroed out in Trump’s 2026 budget request, said the person, who was not authorized to discuss the decision and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

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Last week’s cuts to the the Hispanic Serving Institution program reversed decades of precedent. Congress created the program in 1998 after finding that Latino students were going to college and graduating at far lower rates than white students. The department also cut several smaller programs for colleges serving certain percentages of Asian American, Black or Native American students.

The cuts drew swift blowback from Democrats, who said those programs have long had bipartisan support and fueled social mobility for working-class Americans.

A July memo from the Justice Department argues that the Hispanic Serving Institution grants are unconstitutional because they’re open only to colleges where a quarter of undergraduates or more are Hispanic. The department declined to defend the program in a suit brought by the state of Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions, an anti-affirmative action group.

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to halt the grants. Tennessee argued all of its public universities serve Hispanic students but none meet the “arbitrary ethnic threshold” to be eligible for the funding. Those schools miss out on tens of millions of dollars because of discriminatory requirements, the suit said.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.