Brazilian officials on Thursday announced a sharp drop in deforestation rates, pushing back on one of the arguments that the Trump administration used last week to justify additional tariffs on the South American country.
In May, Amazon deforestation was 61.4% lower than in the same month in 2025, according to officials from the National Institute for Space Research, or INPE, and the Ministry of Environment.
Still, 370 square kilometers (nearly 143 square miles) of the rainforest were cleared. Deforestation over the same period fell 12% in the Cerrado, a savanna in central Brazil that has long been under pressure from the powerful agribusiness sector.
Environment Minister João Paulo Capobianco said that the figure is the lowest ever recorded for May, and that Brazil is on track to reach its lowest annual levels once the data is consolidated next semester.
He said that the month typically sees higher deforestation, because it marks the start of the Amazon’s dry season. In the 10 months from August 2025 to May 2026, deforestation in the Amazon already fell by 37.5%, compared with the same previous period.
