Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced a package of measures today to protect Brazilians whose businesses and livelihoods are threatened by the Trump administration’s punitive 50% tariffs that have just been imposed on the country. Lula’s package is named the “Sovereign Brazil Plan,” and it includes a substantial $5.5 billion government credit package for companies and individuals being harmed by the Trump tariffs. Agencia Brasil reported that Lula also stated, once again, that Brazil will “keep trying to negotiate” with the U.S., “because we like to negotiate. And we don’t want conflict. I don’t want conflict with Uruguay or Venezuela, let alone with the United States.”
Lula put a condition, however, on any negotiations: “The only thing we need to demand is that our sovereignty is untouchable. No one should have any say in what we have to do.”
Therefore, he said, Brazil has set out “to keep selling things from Brazil. If the United States doesn’t want to buy, we’ll look for another country.… Instead of crying here about what we’ve lost, let’s try to win elsewhere. The world is big and eager to do business with Brazil.” Lula gave the example of India, whose government is already cooperating on plans to expand trade between their two countries.
