Brazilian president threatened a 50% tariff on US goods in retaliation for Trump’s levy on the Latin American country
In a move seen by many – including Brazil’s president – as an attack on the country’s sovereignty, the US president, Donald Trump, announced on Wednesday that he intends to impose an additional 50% tariff on Latin America’s largest country from 1 August.
Not only was this the highest rate among this week’s announcements – and aimed at a country with which the US has maintained a trade surplus for 17 years – but the letter sent to the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, also stood out for its intemperate tone, in contrast to the standard format adopted in letters to other countries.
Trump portrayed the new tariff as retaliation for the legal cases faced by former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is now on trial and could soon be jailed for allegedly leading an attempted coup to overturn his 2022 electoral defeat to Lula. Bolsonaro denies the charges.
On Monday, Trump issued his strongest defence to date of Bolsonaro, claiming that the far-right former Brazilian president, often referred to as the “Trump of the Tropics”, was the victim of a “witch-hunt” aimed at keeping him out of next year’s election. Brazil summoned the US envoy in response to the extraordinary intervention.
