Trump’s personal beef behind hefty new Brazilian tariff

President Donald Trump put Brazilian politics front-and-center Wednesday in a letter declaring a new 50% tariff on U.S. imports from the Latin American nation set to begin Aug. 1, citing mistreatment of longtime ally and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

Trump argues Bolsonaro, the de facto head of Brazil’s political right, who is currently on trial for an alleged coup attempt carried out in 2023 against current Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was a respected leader who has since become the victim of a political “witch hunt.”

“I knew and dealt with former President Jair Bolsonaro, and respected him greatly, as did most other Leaders of Countries,” Trump wrote in a letter to da Silva posted to Truth Social. “The way that Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his Term, including by the United States, is an international disgrace. This Trial should not be taking place. It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!”

Brazil levy highest in raft of new tariffs

The 50% trade levy on Brazilian goods is the highest among nearly two dozen new tariff declarations Trump issued this week. On Monday, the president also announced an extension of the pause on reciprocal tariffs announced in April that were due to kick in on Wednesday. Those levies will now go into effect on Aug. 1 along with the newly announced trade fees, which in most cases closely match the reciprocal levies in Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” decree earlier this year.

The tariff letter to da Silva stood out from this week’s other tariff pronouncements, also shared by Trump in screen shots posted to social media, that followed a format primarily focused on trade issues. Beside arguing that Bolsonaro, who served one term as Brazil’s president before losing to da Silva in the 2022 general election, was being mistreated, Trump also pointed to earlier, temporary Brazilian bans on U.S. social media platforms as further justification for the new tariff rate.

In a posting to X on Wednesday, President da Silva pushed back against Trump’s apparent attempt to use trade policy to impact the legal proceedings against Bolsonaro.

“Brazil is a sovereign nation with independent institutions and will not accept any form of tutelage,” da Silva wrote. “The judicial proceedings against those responsible for planning the coup d’état fall exclusively under the jurisdiction of Brazil’s Judicial Branch and, as such, are not subject to any interference or threats that could compromise the independence of national institutions.”

In addition to Trump’s political messaging in the tariff letter to Brazil, the new levy proclamation stands out from the other tariffs issued this week in that Brazil is the only country in the group that currently has a trade deficit with the U.S. The country is the 16th-largest U.S. trading partner and the two countries conducted some $92 billion in trade last year. But 2024 also saw U.S. export volumes to Brazil exceed imports by $7.4 billion, according to data from the trade representative’s office cited in a Wall Street Journal report.

Trump and Bolsonaro’s personal connection

Trump and Bolsonaro met during the U.S. president’s first term in office and have remained allies since that time. On January 8, 2023, a week after da Silva’s inauguration, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed government buildings in Brazil’s capital in what federal investigators say was an attempted coup.

Earlier this year, a five-judge Brazilian Supreme Court panel voted unanimously to move forward with a trial for the former president and a group of alleged co-conspirators following a federal investigation that claimed it had uncovered evidence that there was “a criminal organization” which had “acted in a coordinated manner” to keep then-President Bolsonaro in power, according to a BBC report.

In a social media posting ahead of Wednesday’s tariff announcement, Trump argued for Bolsonaro’s innocence.

“Brazil is doing a terrible thing on their treatment of former President Jair Bolsonaro,” Trump wrote in a Monday posting on Truth Social. “I have watched, as has the World, as they have done nothing but come after him, day after day, night after night, month after month, year after year! He is not guilty of anything, except having fought for THE PEOPLE.”