Trump hits Brazilian products with 50% tariffs over Bolsonaro

Washington – Products imported into the United States from Brazil – including almost a third of the supply invoked every day by American coffee drinkers – are subject to a rate of 50% from Friday, not because of Brazil’s trade policies, but due to President Donald Trump’s relationship with the former Bolsonaro man in Brazil.

Trump usually justifies his prices by pointing out the American trade deficit and saying that other nations benefit from the United States. Many economists do not agree with its point of view, but that does not matter in this case: the United States actually has a trade surplus with Brazil of hundreds of billions of dollars over a decade, not a deficit.

On Friday, Trump imposed a total rate of 50% on certain products imported from Brazil, the highest rate in all countries in the world.

Earlier this week, the Trump administration also slapped the Supreme Court judge, Alexandre de Moraes, with difficult sanctions under the Magnitsky law, a law initially adopted by the Congress with the intention of punishing Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies after death in Sergei Magnitsky, who had investigated Corruption in Russia. In a position on X, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the sanctions were imposed “for serious human rights violations”.

What are the alleged violations of human rights? De Moraes supervised the case against Bolsonaro, which is charged with around thirty others – including the former Brazilian Navy commander, the former Minister of Defense and the former intelligence head – to have tried to associate a coup to prevent the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva, to take office after having defeated Bolsonaro in a 2022 election.

The Supreme Federal Court of Brazil has ordered Bolsonaro to wear an ankle monitor and not to go to social networks, call foreign leaders or leave the country while waiting for its trial. Three Brazilian officials have noted in NBC News that the sentence had been imposed after one of his sons, Eduardo Bolsonaro, a member of the Brazilian congress visiting the United States, worked to enlist Steve Bannon and other Magon allies to attract Trump’s attention and defend pressure on Brazil to his father’s case.

De Moraes also ordered a ban on Brazil of the X social media platform, which belongs to the ally of Trump Elon Musk, which lasted more than a month last year after Musk and X refused to appoint a legal representative of their business in the country or to comply with judicial orders and requests to remove certain accounts and posts associated with disinformation of elections.

And Trump’s own social media society, Trump Media, continued Moraes about a suspension order he returned to the Rumble video accommodation company, which Trump Media uses for his Truth social platform.

“The way Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a highly respected leader around the world during his mandate, including by the United States, is an international shame. This trial should not take place. It is a witch hunt that should end immediately! ” Trump said in a letter he had sent to the president of Brazil, which is widely known as Lula, and posted on Truth Social on July 9.

Trump’s Letter Went On To Tie Bolsonaro’s Prosecution and De Moraes’ Social Media Rulings to the Tariffs He’d Later Imposes: “Due in Part To Brazil’s Insidious Attacks on Free Elections, and the Fundamental Free Speechs of Americans (AS Lately illustrated by the brazilian Supreme. Which has Issued Hundreds of Secret and Unlawful Censorship Orders to Us Social Media Platforms, Threating Them With Millions of Dollars in Fines and Expulsion from the Brazilian Social Media Market), from August 1, 2025, we will charge in Brazil a 50% price on all Brazilian products sent to the United States.

Brazil, the fourth greatest democracy in the world, exports popular products such as coffee, beef, oranges, planes, oil, iron and steel to American Trump decree excluded certain products, including oranges, oil and fertilizers, but not coffee or beef.

Trump’s actions against Brazil have gathered the country’s opposite political sides to some extent.

A delegation comprising supporters of Bolsonaro and a former member of the opposition cabinet of the Brazilian and defense committee of Brazil met in Washington this week with democratic members of the Senatorial Relations Committee and the Republican Senator Thom Tillis to try to remove the dispute.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil also flew to Washington to meet Rubio on Wednesday. And US trade secretary Howard Lutnick spoke by phone with his Brazilian counterpart, two of Brazilian officials said in NBC News. They also said that the call had not done well.

Lula has not yet announced whether or how Brazil retaliated against American prices.

On Thursday, a panel of the United States Court of Appeal heard arguments on a challenge to the Trump authority to impose prices by executive decree provided by companies and a coalition of attorney general. Price opponents argue that the White House has not established that there is a national emergency to justify the bypass of Trump which is, with a few emergency exceptions, supposed to be the authority of the Congress on the prices.

Several of the panel judges have put pressure on the lawyer for the Ministry of Justice representing the government on the president’s right to impose steep tasks using an economic emergency law which does not specifically mention the rates. No other president has ever tried to impose prices under the 1977 law that the Trump administration cites. The case should eventually be at the Supreme Court.