Trump administration proposes 25% tariffs on Brazil despite extensive US trade surplus

Thursday, 4 June 2026

Brazil

The Trump administration proposed 25% tariffs on imports from Brazil, charging that the world’s 10th-biggest economy engages in trade practices that are “unreasonable’’ and that “burden or restrict US commerce”.

Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said he received the decision “with indignation”. He also blamed the decision by the US administration on his rival in October’s elections, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, who visited Washington last week. The senator is the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, once nicknamed “the Trump of the Tropics” by his allies.

The announcement came after an investigation by the Office of the US Trade Representative, charging Brazil with lax anti-corruption enforcement and unfair tariffs of its own, among other things.

The US has had a goods trade surplus with Brazil for years.

US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that he and President Donald Trump had “constructive’’ meetings with Lula and other Brazilian officials. But he said that “we continue to have substantial differences in resolving the issues identified in this investigation”.’

Lula yesterday cited other reasons for the punishing tariff proposal. For the first time he named an American official as a hurdle to his relations with Trump and once again he threatened to retaliate.

“I spoke to President Trump for three hours, and that Marco Rubio guy, the head of the State Department, he is anti-Latin American,” Lula said. “He is a deadly enemy of Cuba, a deadly enemy of many Latin American countries. I already told Trump that he does not like Brazil.”

Brazil’s government said in a statement that its dialogue with American counterparts, which includes “personal involvement of Presidents Lula and Trump,” is being “sabotaged by merely electoral and family matters” of the Bolsonaros.

It added that it hopes “the recommendations do not become effective tariffs”.

“But we stress we will adopt every measure that is capable of reducing the damage that might be caused to the national economy, to the jobs and the income of Brazilians,” the country's government said.