\n<\/p>\n
Brazil has vowed to retaliate against Washington\u2019s decision to impose 25% tariffs on imports of some Brazilian products.<\/p>\n
The office of the president, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, described the tariffs as \u201ca regrettable milestone\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
The new tariffs are scheduled to take effect on 22 July. Once that happens, Brazil \u2013 which has historically run a trade deficit with the US \u2013 will become the second most heavily tariffed country by Washington after China.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s \u201cunreasonable acts, policies, and practices\u201d that had \u201charmed US commerce\u201d.<\/p>\n
Brazil, however, says it repeatedly sought to present data refuting the allegations and sees the decision primarily as political. Politicians from Lula\u2019s party also view it as an attempt by Donald Trump to influence Brazil\u2019s upcoming elections.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s sons, the far-right senator Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro, who was chosen to run after the former president was convicted for attempting to overturn the 2022 election, which he lost to Lula.<\/p>\n
<\/span>The Brazilian president, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, and his government \u2018have not negotiated with the US in good faith\u2019, said Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state. <\/span> Photograph: Andr\u00e9 Borges\/EPA<\/p>\n The USTR investigation began in July last year. At the time, Trump cited Bolsonaro\u2019s ongoing trial as one of the reasons for launching it, saying it \u201cshould not be happening\u201d. \u201cIt is a witch-hunt that must end IMMEDIATELY!\u201d the US president wrote.<\/p>\n At the time, another of Bolsonaro\u2019s sons, the then-congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, claimed credit for encouraging Trump \u2013 a longstanding ally of his father\u2019s \u2013 to take retaliatory measures against Brazil. He was later stripped of his seat after moving to the US, where he remains.<\/p>\n Lula\u2019s office said on Wednesday that the tariffs were the result of \u201ca narrative constructed with the active collaboration of the Bolsonaro family\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are false patriots who plotted and publicly defended actions against our country, driven by electoral objectives,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who had meetings with Bolsonaro\u2019s sons in Washington, posted that there should be no confusion about why the US had imposed the tariffs.<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Lula and his government have not negotiated with the US in good faith,\u201d he wrote. \u201cFor 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Opinion polls, however, including one released on Wednesday, have shown since last year that the tariffs have strengthened Lula\u2019s position against Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro. More than half of Brazilians blame the Bolsonaro family for them.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotionFree newsletter | Every weekday<\/p>\n Sign up to First Thing<\/span><\/p>\n Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n <\/span>Fl\u00e1vio Bolsonaro, who is to run against Lula in Brazil\u2019s election in October, has blamed the president for the new tariffs. <\/span> Photograph: Alexandre Meneghini\/Reuters<\/p>\n That prompted Fl\u00e1vio 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.<\/p>\n He reposted Rubio\u2019s comments and added: \u201cLula is no longer fit to be president of Brazil. We are on a plane without a pilot. Brazil\u2019s Biden has become grumpy, reckless and a danger to our nation.\u201d<\/p>\n Lula\u2019s office said it would \u201cimmediately begin the procedures to invoke the instruments provided for under the Reciprocity Law\u201d, which allows the Brazilian state to adopt retaliatory measures against specific countries.<\/p>\n After the US supreme court ruled against many of Trump\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n The USTR\u2019s final decision alleged that Brazil had adopted practices that \u201cburden or restrict\u201d US commerce, including the use of Pix, a free and highly popular instant payment system, which it argued harmed US credit card companies.<\/p>\n Lula\u2019s office again rejected the allegations. \u201cBrazil does not recognise the legitimacy of investigations that are not grounded in multilateral trade rules,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n The USTR also said the tariffs were justified by \u201cillegal deforestation\u201d, arguing that it gave Brazilian farmers an unfair advantage over their US counterparts.<\/p>\n Besides the irony, noted by many analysts, of the Trump administration citing an issue that surged during the presidency of its ally Bolsonaro, Lula\u2019s office dismissed that part of the report as \u201cabsurd\u201d: \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brazil has vowed to retaliate against Washington\u2019s decision to impose 25% tariffs on imports of some Brazilian products. The office of the president, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, described the tariffs as \u201ca regrettable milestone\u201d in the history of relations between the two countries and said they were the result of pressure exerted on the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[3160,6907,513,1324,72,81,2543],"class_list":{"0":"post-51215","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-brazil","9":"tag-imposes","10":"tag-products","11":"tag-retaliate","12":"tag-tariffs","13":"tag-trump","14":"tag-vows"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}