At a glance, President Donald Trump’s threat on Wednesday to levy a 50% tariff against Brazil might appear unremarkable. His second term has been defined by such statements.
But the president’s letter, posted to social media, was not like what has come before.
Mr. Trump began by declaring that legal proceedings against former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro were a “witch hunt” and “should end IMMEDIATELY!”
Why We Wrote This
Tariffs have become central to Trump’s foreign policy playbook. But in citing a “witch hunt” against a political ally in his Brazil tariff threat, he risks conflating his own personal interests with those of the United States.
Latin America is no stranger to the United States imposing its interests, sometimes militarily. Economic measures from boycotts to sanctions have long been a way for the U.S. to compel change around the world. Tariffs are just another tool in Mr. Trump’s belt. What is striking about Wednesday’s letter is its seemingly arbitrary and personal nature. The U.S. actually runs a trade surplus with Brazil, undermining the economic rationale for tariffs. And among a group of nations chafing under America’s global influence, Brazil has been seen as a voice of relative moderation.
Yet Mr. Trump is focusing his political power on the case of a close political ally who faces charges for contesting an election found to be legitimate by multiple sources – a situation with echoes of his own. In doing so, he is signaling to the world that his own agenda can dramatically change a nation’s prospects in an instant.
“This doesn’t fit within broader historical patterns of U.S. interventionism in Latin America. It has a different character, and that’s because it stems from the very particular style of Donald Trump,” says Michael Shifter, senior fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington. “It is completely melding what his personal feelings are with U.S. interests and viewing them as one in the same. That is distinctive. We just haven’t seen that before.”
The effects could be far-reaching, with signs of a patriotic surge in support for embattled Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, popularly known as Lula. It also risks accelerating some allies’ search for more reliable partners.
“It is becoming harder and harder to understand what it means to be a friend or an ally of the United States,” says Bruna Santos, a Brazil expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. “The message is that even friendly governments can be punished if they fall out of line.”
Brazilian investigators say that after narrowly losing the 2022 presidential election, Mr. Bolsonaro “acted and was directly and effectively aware of the actions” of a criminal organization that planned to launch a coup d’état. On Jan. 8, 2023, Bolsonaro supporters invaded government buildings in the capital in what investigators say was an attempted coup. This March, a panel of judges from Brazil’s Supreme Court unanimously voted for a trial to proceed.
Since that time, one of the former president’s sons, Eduardo Bolsonaro, has taken a leave of absence from his role as a member of Congress to lobby the Trump administration to bring pressure on Brazil.
There is precedent for the American government using extraordinary measures to punish foreign officials accused of human rights abuses. Congress passed the Magnitsky Act in 2012 after Russia imprisoned, tortured, and killed a Russian tax lawyer investigating corruption.
“The circumstances are completely different to an objective observer,” says Gary Hufbauer, a nonresident fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “But that’s what Trump has as his precedent.”
Lula has called Mr. Trump’s demands an outrageous attempt to undermine the nation’s sovereignty. And reaction from the streets of Rio de Janeiro suggests the tariffs could only strengthen his resolve.
“I’m entirely in favor of Lula’s reaction, defending [our] sovereignty,” says Fernanda Canavez, a teacher. Brazil “can’t back down. It’s one thing to need [to maintain a relationship with the U.S.], it’s another to be held hostage.”
Mr. Trump’s frustration with Brazil has been building. His letter also cites a Brazilian court decision that found social media companies could be accountable for content posted by users – a decision he said amounted to censorship of U.S. companies.
Then there is Brazil’s crucial role in BRICS – a bloc of nations including China, Russia, and India. BRICS explicitly seeks to craft a less U.S.- centric world order. They drew Mr. Trump’s ire at a recent meeting for discussing ways to lessen the global hegemony of the dollar. Mr. Trump promised to hit any nation aligned with BRICS with a 10% tariff.
“These tariffs are clearly part of Trump’s wider policy of trying to redraw global politics,” says Rubens Duarte, coordinator of LabMundo, which analyzes major trends in society, economics, and politics.
Yet the huge 50% tariff and the demand to drop the case against Mr. Bolsonaro are curious, especially since there is very little Lula can do about the case.
Says Mr. Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue: “The message a lot of governments will take away from this is that … they can’t live that way and run their economies so subjective to [Trump’s] whims.”
