Tariff tantrums: Brazil to match US tariffs after Trump’s threat of 50% levy
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Responding to President Donald Trump’s Wednesday threat to impose a 50 percent import tax on Brazilian goods from August 1, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said he is ready to match any tariffs imposed on his country by the US.
The US is Brazil’s second-largest trade partner after China, so the hike from a tariff rate of 10 percent to a steep 50 percent, if it comes into force, would hit the South American nation hard.
In a letter, Trump cited Brazil’s treatment of former President Jair Bolsonaro as a trigger for tariff-hike, the BBC reported on Thursday.
Controversial, Bolsonaro is currently on trial for allegedly attempting to stage a coup against Lula after being defeated by him in the 2022 election.
Trump referred to Bolsonaro as “a highly respected leader throughout the world.” “This Trial should not be taking place,” he wrote, calling on Brazil to immediately end the “witch hunt” against the former President. Trump’s support for Bolsonaro does not come as a surprise as the two men have long been considered allies.
The US President had already slammed Brazil for its treatment of Bolsonaro on Monday, comparing it to the legal cases he himself had faced in the US courts.
His 50 percent tariff threat was met with a robust and lengthy response by President Lula.
In a post on X, he stressed that Brazil was “a sovereign country with independent institutions and will not accept any tutelage.” This week, Lula said, without naming Trump, that Brazil was against kings and emperors.
The Brazilian leader also announced that “any unilateral tariff increases” would be met with reciprocal tariffs imposed on US goods.
President Lula made a point of challenging Trump’s assertion that the US had a trade deficit with Brazil, calling it “inaccurate.” His rebuttal is backed by US government data, which suggests the US had a goods trade surplus with Brazil of USD 7.4 billion (£5.4bn) in 2024.
Brazil’s main imports from the US are mineral fuels, aircraft and machinery, while the US imports gas and petroleum, iron, and coffee from Brazil.
Besides Brazil, Trump also threatened with higher tariffs 22 countries on Wednesday, including Japan, South Korea and Sri Lanka, which received the US President’s letters warning of higher levies.
But the letter Trump sent to his Brazilian counterpart was the only one focussing matters beyond alleged trade deficits.
As well as denouncing the treatment of ex-President Bolsonaro, Trump slammed what he said were “secret and unlawful censorship orders to US social media platforms” which he said Brazil had imposed.
Trump Media, which operates the US President’s Truth Social platform and is majority-owned by him, is among the American technology companies fighting Brazilian court rulings over orders suspending social media accounts.
Lula fought back on that front too, justifying the rulings by arguing that “Brazilian society rejects hateful content, racism, child pornography, scams, fraud, and speeches against human rights and democratic freedom.”
