United States President Donald Trump has threatened Brazil with a 50 percent tariff, citing the criminal charges against its former president and his political ally Jair Bolsonaro, who is accused of plotting a coup.In a letter to Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s current president, Trump said on Wednesday that the treatment of Bolsonaro, who refused to publicly concede the presidential election that he lost to Lula in 2022, “is an international disgrace”.
The letter was one of 22 tariff notices Trump sent this week to various countries. On Monday, the president extended a pause on his sweeping global tariffs from Wednesday to August 1.
For the most part, Trump says he is trying to rebalance large trading deficits, whereby the US imports more from a country than it exports there.
But the US has a trade surplus with Brazil, and the tariff threatened against South America’s largest economy was higher than those received by other countries, which have mostly fallen in the range of 25 to 40 percent.
The escalation in tensions between the US and Brazil came as Lula hosted representatives from China, Russia, Iran and other nations for a BRICS summit of emerging economies in Rio de Janeiro this week.
Leaders attending the summit criticised Trump’s tariffs and the recent US and Israeli bombing of Iran, drawing threats from Trump of a 10 percent additional tariff for “anti-American” BRICS-aligned countries.
What has Trump announced in relation to Brazil?
Trump has continued to publish letters informing US trading partners of tariffs planned to begin on August 1 if they can’t reach trade deals with his government before that. So far, he has sent 22 letters to heads of state. More could still come. …