President Donald Trump said Wednesday the U.S. will slap a 50% tariff on Brazil’s imports, partly in retaliation for the ongoing prosecution of the country’s former president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Trump said the new tariff — a massive jump from the 10% rate the U.S. imposed on Brazil in early April — was also spurred by the “very unfair trade relationship” with the country, calling it “far from Reciprocal.”

The U.S. is also launching an investigation into potential unfair trade practices by Brazil, Trump said in a letter to Brazil’s current president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

The probe is based on “Brazil’s continued attacks on the Digital Trade activities of American Companies,” Trump wrote in the letter, which he shared publicly in a Truth Social post.

  • DornerStan@lemmygrad.ml
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    3 days ago

    Thank you for year attention to this matter!

    lmao

    Doesn’t this just further strengthen BRICS in the long run?

    • burlemarx@lemmygrad.ml
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      2 days ago

      Yup, everyone in the Brazilian left thinks Trump just presented them a gift. Trump’s tariffs will hit the most reactionary capitalist sector in Brazil which is the Agribusiness. We have a big opportunity in Brazil to push a discourse of sovereignty, of non-alignment with the US and forging closer ties with the BRICS.

      The problem right now is how the Workers’ party will take advantage of it. Lula and the rest of the leaders of the party have shown again and again that they are a bunch of spineless cowards afraid of any conflict with the financial capitalist class. Aside from symbolic gestures, I’m skeptical on how this event is going be used politically.

      • rainpizza@lemmygrad.mlOP
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        2 days ago

        According to SputnikGlobe, there are some organizations rallying against Trump’s 50% tariffs ->

        Translation:

        Hundreds of people demonstrate in Sao Paulo against the threat of 50% tariffs by US President Donald Trump.

        The protest, called by the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT) and Frentes Populares, also demanded the imposition of taxes on the South American country’s super-rich.

        Do you have any information on this? Is this widespread or is just un Sao Paulo?

        • burlemarx@lemmygrad.ml
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          2 days ago

          This is just in São Paulo for the moment. I think the main purpose of the act wasn’t even the Trump’s tariffs, but they are simply using the momentum right now.

            • burlemarx@lemmygrad.ml
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              2 days ago

              I wish the radical left could launch a presidential campaign for next year. That would help to tip the scales of the political debate. The problem is that currently there is too much ego. I was just listening to Jones Manoel this morning, and he was calling the parties out for their sectarian behavior.

    • rainpizza@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      3 days ago

      Unless Lula and the Brazilian gov’t fumbles this, it should. It is funny that this happens because Brazil is one of the neutral ones which are willing to compromise with the USA.

      • burlemarx@lemmygrad.ml
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        2 days ago

        Lula is almost licking Western boots to please the Western overlords in his third term. Even Xi Jinping seems to have made some reprimands to him.

        • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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          1 day ago

          this is true, lula is reminding me of biden. a lot of posturing, not a lot of acting.

    • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      i hope so, because we are gonna need it now. brazillian burgeois seem to want to cozy up to trump though.

        • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
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          3 days ago

          confrontation and anti-systemic rhetoric is very popular right now but lula refuses to do any meaninful confrontation.

          he did bare-minimum confrontation related to our debt ceiling policy recently, and that was already super popular. people crave this.