Brazil has vowed to retaliate against Washington’s decision to impose 25% tariffs on imports of some Brazilian products.
The office of the president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, described the tariffs as “a regrettable milestone” in the history of relations between the two countries and said they were the result of pressure exerted on the White House by the family of the far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro.
The new tariffs are scheduled to take effect on 22 July. Once that happens, Brazil – which has historically run a trade deficit with the US – will become the second most heavily tariffed country by Washington after China.
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) confirmed the tariffs, which had first been proposed last month, late on Wednesday, citing what it described as Brazil’s “unreasonable acts, policies, and practices” that had “harmed US commerce”.
Brazil, however, says it repeatedly sought to present data refuting the allegations and sees the decision primarily as political. Politicians from Lula’s party also view it as an attempt by Donald Trump to influence Brazil’s upcoming elections.
Lula, whose relationship with Trump has been marked by ups and downs and is currently at a low point, is seeking re-election in October. His main challenger will be one of Bolsonaro’s sons, the far-right senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who was chosen to run after the former president was convicted for attempting to overturn the 2022 election, which he lost to Lula.
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and his government ‘have not negotiated with the US in good faith’, said Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state. Photograph: André Borges/EPA
The USTR investigation began in July last year. At the time, Trump cited Bolsonaro’s ongoing trial as one of the reasons for launching it, saying it “should not be happening”. “It is a witch-hunt that must end IMMEDIATELY!” the US president wrote.
At the time, another of Bolsonaro’s sons, the then-congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, claimed credit for encouraging Trump – a longstanding ally of his father’s – to take retaliatory measures against Brazil. He was later stripped of his seat after moving to the US, where he remains.
Lula’s office said on Wednesday that the tariffs were the result of “a narrative constructed with the active collaboration of the Bolsonaro family”.
“They are false patriots who plotted and publicly defended actions against our country, driven by electoral objectives,” it said.
The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who had meetings with Bolsonaro’s sons in Washington, posted that there should be no confusion about why the US had imposed the tariffs.
“President Lula and his government have not negotiated with the US in good faith,” he wrote. “For the past year, Lula has put his own ego ahead of making a deal for the welfare of the Brazilian people, and these tariffs are the price for that.”
Opinion polls, however, including one released on Wednesday, have shown since last year that the tariffs have strengthened Lula’s position against Flávio Bolsonaro. More than half of Brazilians blame the Bolsonaro family for them.
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Flávio Bolsonaro, who is to run against Lula in Brazil’s election in October, has blamed the president for the new tariffs. Photograph: Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters
That prompted Flávio Bolsonaro to ask the US, during a USTR hearing last week, to suspend the tariffs because they could benefit Lula electorally. After his request was ignored, the senator blamed Lula for the new tariffs on Thursday morning.
He reposted Rubio’s comments and added: “Lula is no longer fit to be president of Brazil. We are on a plane without a pilot. Brazil’s Biden has become grumpy, reckless and a danger to our nation.”
Lula’s office said it would “immediately begin the procedures to invoke the instruments provided for under the Reciprocity Law”, which allows the Brazilian state to adopt retaliatory measures against specific countries.
After the US supreme court ruled against many of Trump’s tariffs imposed under a different law, Brazil will become the first country targeted under the new strategy, which relies on Section 301 of US trade law, a provision authorising investigations into alleged unfair trade practices.
The USTR’s final decision alleged that Brazil had adopted practices that “burden or restrict” US commerce, including the use of Pix, a free and highly popular instant payment system, which it argued harmed US credit card companies.
Lula’s office again rejected the allegations. “Brazil does not recognise the legitimacy of investigations that are not grounded in multilateral trade rules,” it said.
The USTR also said the tariffs were justified by “illegal deforestation”, arguing that it gave Brazilian farmers an unfair advantage over their US counterparts.
Besides the irony, noted by many analysts, of the Trump administration citing an issue that surged during the presidency of its ally Bolsonaro, Lula’s office dismissed that part of the report as “absurd”: “The entire world knows that, since 2023 [when he took office], we have taken decisive action against environmental crimes and drastically reduced deforestation across all Brazilian biomes.”
