As of Sunday, July 27, “Brasil 247” news outlet reports that the Lula da Silva government expects President Donald Trump to proceed with his threatened 50% tariffs on all Brazilian exports to the U.S. This, despite the reality that the U.S. has enjoyed a trade surplus with Brazil for decades. Trump stated that the tariffs are intended to force Brazil to drop coup-plotting charges against former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, so that this U.S. puppet, who has repeatedly promised to pull Brazil out of the BRICS and allow the U.S. to establish a military base inside Brazil should he be reelected, may return to power in in 2026.
The Lula government is open to negotiate on trade issues, but it will not capitulate to Trump’s crude attempt to impose regime-change through punitive tariffs and a Section 301 trade investigation. “Brazil To Double Down on BRICS in Defiance of Donald Trump,” London’s Financial Times headlined its July 26 interview with President Lula’s Special Foreign Policy Advisor Celso Amorim. The U.S. attacks “are reinforcing our relations with the BRICS, because we want to have diversified relations and not depend on any one country,” Amorim stated. Trump’s interference in Brazilian internal affairs is something not seen “even in colonial times,” he added.
The 50% tariff threat is “clearly using trade pressure as a political weapon,” Amorim had charged in an earlier July 17 interview with Luiz Nassif, the nationalist editor of the influential GGN media network. Amorim called Section 301 investigations “the atomic bomb of the U.S. trade system,” used to impose unilateral trade sanctions against countries.
Washington has threatened similar economic warfare against South Africa and other BRICS nations, if they don’t bend to Wall Street’s will.
