US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he has applied 50% tariffs to countries whose United States “has not been good.” Although not directly cited the government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (PT), Brazil is among them.
The speech took place during an event in Washington DC, where Trump stated that he established tariffs ranging from 15% to 50% to pressure foreign countries to open their markets.
“In some cases, it’s 50% because the relationship hasn’t been good with these countries. So we just said, ‘They’ll pay 50’. And that’s it,” he said. “
In a public letter sent by Trump to the Brazilian president, on July 9, the White House head established 50% tariffs on imported products from Brazil to the United States and determined the immediate opening of a section 301 investigation.
See also:
-
What is section 301, which Trump will use to investigate Brazil’s commercial practices
Trump justified the tariff to Brazil citing what he considers a state “witch hunt” against former President Jair Messias Bolsonaro (PL) and “partly due to Brazil’s insidious attacks against free elections and the fundamental violation of Americans’ freedom of expression.”
“[Isso ocorreu] As recently demonstrated by the Brazilian Supreme Court of Brazil, which issued hundreds of secret and illegal censorship orders to US social media platforms, threatening them with fines of millions of dollars and expulsion from the Brazilian social media market, ”said Trump.
In response, Lula stated that the reciprocity law would resort and confirmed that it would rate the US equally.
“We have several ways. We can resort to the WTO (World Trade Organization), propose international investigations, charge explanations. But the main one is the law of reciprocity, passed in Congress. If he charge 50% of us, we will charge 50% of it,” he said in an interview with TV Record.
See the full list of affected countries:
- South Africa: 30%
- Algeria: 30%
- Bangladesh: 35%
- Bosnia and Herzegovina: 30%
- Brazil: 50%
- Brunei: 25%
- Cambodia: 36%
- Canada: 35%
- Kazakhstan: 25%
- South Korea: 25%
- Filipinas: 19%
- Indonesia: 32%
- Iraq: 30%
- Japan: 25%
- Laos: 40%
- Libya: 30%
- Malaysia: 25%
- Mexico: 30%
- Myanmar: 40%
- Moldavia: 25%
- Serbia: 35%
- Sri Lanka: 30%
- Thailand: 36%
- Tunisia: 25%
- European Union: 30%
