U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that the United States will impose a 50% tariff on imports from Brazil, as a partial response to the ongoing trial of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Trump stated in a message that the new tariff - a huge leap from the 10% rate that the U.S. imposed on Brazil in early April - is also a response to the "very unfair trade relationship" between the two countries.
This message to current Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the latest among nearly twenty other messages that Trump has recently sent to world leaders, dictating new and sharp tariff rates on the goods they sell to the United States. However, the message directed to Lula goes beyond the other messages, explicitly imposing a new U.S. import tax rate as a punishment for a country involved in internal political and legal affairs that Trump disapproves of.
The value of the Brazilian currency, the real, has dropped by more than 2% against the U.S. dollar. Trump had previously expressed his displeasure with Brazil's treatment of Bolsonaro, a staunch ally of the American president who is facing trial for his alleged role in an attempted coup to overturn his loss in the 2022 elections. Trump described the situation as a "global disgrace" in the message, which he shared publicly in a post on the Truth Social platform.