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Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva walks among presidential guards during an event at the Planalto presidential palace in Brasilia, Brazil, July 9, 2025
BRAZILIAN President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has threatened to suspend economic deals with the United States after Washington slaps 50 per cent trade tariffs on his country.
US President Donald Trump singled out Brazil for the sharp increase in import taxes over its treatment of it right-wing former president Jair Bolsonaro.
Wednesday’s move demonstrates that personal grudges, rather than simple economics, are a driving force in the US leader’s use of tariffs.
Mr Trump avoided his standard form letter with Brazil, specifically tying his tariffs to the trial of Mr Bolsonaro, who is charged with plotting a coup to stay in power after losing the last election.
The US president has described Mr Bolsonaro as a friend, and he hosted the former Brazilian president at his Mar-a-Lago resort when both were in power in 2020.
“This trial should not be taking place,” Mr Trump wrote in the letter posted on Truth Social. “It is a witch hunt that should end immediately!”
The US president himself was charged in 2023 over his efforts to annul the results of the 2020 US presidential election.
Mr da Silva, who is always known as Lula, responded with a forceful statement warning that Mr Trump’s tariffs would trigger the country’s economic reciprocity law, which allows the suspension of trade, investment and intellectual property agreements with countries that harm Brazil’s competitiveness.
He noted that the US has had a trade surplus of more than $410 billion (£301bn) with Brazil over the past 15 years.
“Brazil is a sovereign country with independent institutions that will not accept being taken for granted by anyone,” Lula said.
In his statement, the Brazilian president also defended his country’s legal system, saying the “proceedings against those who planned the coup d’etat is a competence of the Brazilian judiciary and is not subject to interference or threats that harm the independence of national institutions.”
Mr Bolsonaro did not comment on Mr Trump’s tariff decision, but he claimed on social media that he was being politically persecuted.
Sovereignty and the rule of law are under threat from Trump’s attacks on Lula’s administration just as they have been across Latin America, argue CARLOS MARTINEZ and SARA VIVACQUA
