# COMMENTARY: Brazil at 25% — the Trade Offensive Targeting Lula and Defying the Hemisphere

> On June 1, 2026, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) dropped a silent bomb into hemispheric relations: a proposal

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Commentary
- Published: 2026-06-23
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/commentaire-bresil-a-25-la-riposte-commerciale-qui-vise-lula-et-defie-l-hemisphe

## Introduction: The Tariff Wall Rebuilds, and Brasília Pays the Price

### A Proposal That Surfaces After a Judicial Shipwreck

On June 1, 2026, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (**USTR**) dropped a silent bomb into hemispheric relations: a proposal for an additional **25% tariff** on nearly all Brazilian goods imported into the United States, justified by trade practices deemed **unreasonable** under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. The decision did not come from nowhere. It is the direct consequence of a legal earthquake on February 20, 2026, when the **U.S. Supreme Court** issued a historic 6-3 ruling: the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (**IEEPA**) does not confer on the president the power to impose tariffs. The immediate result: the massive customs duties brandished against Brasília since the summer of 2025 collapsed with a single judicial gavel strike.

Washington had to react. The **Trump administration** could not accept seeing its tariff arsenal disarmed by nine justices. It therefore pivoted toward an older, more procedural, but also legally stronger weapon: Section 301, the same text that had been used to build the tariff wall against China during the first term. For Brazil, the timeline is tight. A public hearing is scheduled for **July 6, 2026**, with a legal response deadline set at **July 15, 2026**. The deadline to submit written comments was **July 1, 2026**.

### When Trade Becomes a Foreign Policy Tool

What is striking about this offensive is the multiplicity of grievances accumulated by the USTR. Six areas are targeted: **digital commerce and electronic payment services**, preferential tariffs deemed unfair to American companies, anticorruption enforcement, intellectual property protection, access to the ethanol market, and — in no small irony — **illegal deforestation**. This last grievance is particularly cynical coming from an administration that withdrew from the Paris Agreement and dismantled the EPA. But consistency has never been a priority of Trumpian trade diplomacy.

Brasília did not fall into the trap of paralysis. President **Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva** immediately struck back, organizing a press conference on deforestation to show that U.S. government data were wrong. In May 2026, deforestation in the Amazon had fallen by **61.4%** compared to May 2025. But the logic governing Washington is not the logic of facts — it is the logic of power.

*I must admit: when I read the USTR's list of grievances against Brazil, I momentarily thought someone had slipped a joke into the official file. Deforestation, being pointed to by an administration that made environmental deregulation an electoral platform — that is the kind of hypocrisy that deserves to be named clearly, even if it does not invalidate the legitimacy of certain other trade grievances Washington advances.*

## The Collapse of IEEPA and the Need for a New Wall

### The Supreme Court Rewrites the Rules of the Game

The Supreme Court's decision on **February 20, 2026** in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump and Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc. constitutes a structural turning point in American trade policy. The justices ruled: IEEPA, a statute designed to freeze enemy assets or regulate financial transactions during crises, cannot be invoked to levy customs duties. The power to tax imports belongs constitutionally to **Congress**, and any delegation of that power to the president must be explicit. It was not under IEEPA.

The consequences were immediate and brutal. All the so-called **reciprocal tariffs** imposed since April 2025, the 10% baseline tariff, the fentanyl-related emergency surcharges, and above all the **40% tariff specifically imposed on Brazil** in the summer of 2025 — all of it evaporated. The U.S. government found itself facing a potential bill of more than **$130 billion** in refunds to aggrieved importers. The Court left the refund mechanisms unresolved — a poisoned gift for the lower courts.

### Section 301: A Slower Weapon but Impervious to Courts

USTR **Jamieson Greer**, in a communiqué issued the day of the Supreme Court ruling, mapped the path to tariff reconstruction: launch **new Section 301 investigations** on an accelerated timeline. This section of the 1974 Act requires a formal process — investigation, public consultation, hearing — but it is immune to the legal challenges that brought down IEEPA. The Section 301 tariffs imposed on China since the first Trump term were never reversed. It is this legally robust model that Washington now wants to apply to Brasília.

The specific investigation into Brazil had been launched as early as **July 15, 2025**, at President Trump's direction. It already covered the six areas mentioned above. The **June 2026** verdict is therefore the conclusion of a process begun a year earlier, and its publication comes precisely when the administration is seeking to rebuild its trade arsenal on firmer legal footing. This is not a coincidence: it is a strategy.

*Credit where credit is due: procedurally, Section 301 is infinitely stronger than IEEPA. The Trump administration learned its painful lesson from the early years. But a more legal weapon is not necessarily a more just one, and procedural legitimacy cannot mask the political motivations that show through in the choice of targets.*

## The USTR's Six Grievances Against Brasília: The Real and the Pretext

### Heterogeneous Accusations Mixing the Legitimate and the Political

The USTR based its determination on six categories of Brazilian practices deemed unreasonable. Some of these accusations deserve to be taken seriously. The question of **unfair preferential tariffs** — Brazil applying tariff schedules that disadvantage American goods relative to those of certain partners — is a legitimate trade grievance. The same is true of certain aspects of **intellectual property protection** and access to the ethanol market, where Brazil has applied an 18% tariff on American ethanol imports since 2023.

But other accusations are frankly political. The question of **anticorruption enforcement** is notoriously vague: no country is normally subjected to commercial tariffs because its judicial system is insufficiently effective against domestic corruption. This is a transparent pretext to target a left-wing government whose prosecutions of former president **Jair Bolsonaro** — a Trump ally accused of attempting a coup in January 2023 — deeply irritate the White House. The two logics — commercial and political — coexist in this file without ever being clearly separated.

### Pix: When a National Payment System Becomes a Trade Weapon

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the American accusation concerns **Pix**, Brazil's instant payment system developed by the Central Bank of Brazil. According to the Atlantic Council, the word **Pix** appears more than **twenty times** in the USTR's determination — making it one of the first cases in the history of trade law where a national payment system is treated as an unfair trade practice under Section 301. Pix processes **$6.7 trillion** in annual transactions and is expected to represent half of Brazilian e-commerce by 2028.

The American argument: the Central Bank of Brazil plays both the role of market regulator and **proprietary operator** of Pix, creating a structural conflict of interest that disadvantages American companies such as Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal. Brasília responds that Pix serves financial inclusion and is subject to non-discriminatory rules. This debate is not trivial: as the Atlantic Council notes, if this logic applies to Brazil, it could very quickly apply to the **digital euro** being developed by the European Central Bank.

*The Pix affair deeply troubles me, and I will say why. I understand that American payment companies look unfavorably on a public competitor with mandatory distribution. But transforming that commercial concern into a tariff grievance under Section 301 opens a breach through which every central bank in the world developing a national payment infrastructure could one day find itself under American commercial investigation. This is a dangerous extension of American trade law into the monetary sovereignty of states.*

## The Bolsonaro Dimension: The Tariff as Instrument of Political Revenge

### Trump, Bolsonaro, and the Memory of January 8, 2023

To fully understand the target chosen, one must return to history. On **January 8, 2023**, supporters of former Brazilian president **Jair Bolsonaro** stormed the National Congress, the Presidential Palace, and the Supreme Court in Brasília — a Brazilian echo of January 6, 2021 in America. Bolsonaro, then in exile in Washington, was the symbol of that populist right that Trump considers his global political family. The judicial proceedings brought by the Lula government against Bolsonaro, for attempted coup, enraged the White House.

As early as July 2025, Trump had explicitly linked the tariffs to the **witch hunt** against his Brazilian ally, announcing a 50% tariff on Brazilian imports — the highest announced against any country — saying openly that it was a response to attacks on Bolsonaro and freedom of expression. Brazil's Supreme Court also declared Bolsonaro ineligible until **2030**, depriving him of any chance of electoral revenge in the October 2026 presidential election.

### The Section 301 Countermove: Same Target, New Rifle

With the fall of IEEPA, Washington had to find a new legal vehicle to maintain pressure on Brasília. Section 301 provides that opportunity, but it requires commercial packaging. The grievances must be commercial, not political. That is why the June 2026 file presents accusations carefully framed in commercial language: **unreasonable practices**, **burden on American commerce**, **discrimination against American companies**. The political dimension is real but suppressed.

Brasília perfectly understood the maneuver. The Brazilian government concluded that the points Washington deemed **non-negotiable** include issues that encroach on Brazilian sovereignty: Pix, Brazil's trade agreements with China and Mexico. Brasília categorically refuses to break its treaties with other countries to satisfy American demands. According to Brazilian news site Metrópoles, Planalto insiders acknowledged as early as mid-June 2026 that they saw **little chance** of avoiding the materialization of the 25% tariff.

*What annoys me about this affair is precisely this concealment. If Washington has legitimate trade grievances against Brazil — and it has some — let it articulate them honestly, without mixing them with political revenge over Bolsonaro's fate. This mixing of categories serves no one: it weakens the credibility of American trade policy, it strengthens Lula on his own political stage, and it pushes Brasília toward Beijing. Trump is sometimes a necessary evil for recalibrating overly comfortable partners. But here, we are in the realm of counterproductive excess.*

## The Paradox of America's Trade Surplus Facing Tariffs

### Washington Punishes a Country With Which It Runs a Surplus

One of the most striking aspects of this file is often glossed over in the American debate: the **United States runs a trade surplus with Brazil**. The Boston Globe noted as early as June 2, 2026 that Washington was proposing 25% tariffs despite a positive trade balance. The Brazilian government itself highlighted this, indicating that the **average tariff applied by Brazil on American imports is 2.7%** — a level that in no way justifies the claim that American companies are disadvantaged in access to the Brazilian market.

The USTR's logic lies elsewhere. The issue is not a trade deficit to correct, but a global program of rebuilding the American tariff wall under a court-proof legal authority. Brazil is a prime target: large enough to serve as an example (10th largest economy), politically linked to sensitive enough issues to justify escalation, and sufficiently dependent on the American market to feel the pressure. High-stakes Brazilian products — semi-finished iron and steel products, for instance, representing **$3.36 billion** in exports to the United States in 2025 — are precisely in the crosshairs of the new measures.

### More Than 1,200 Exemptions: Washington's Strategic Generosity

Washington is also not shooting itself in the foot. The proposed 25% tariff comes with a list of exemptions covering more than **1,200 Harmonized Tariff Schedule classifications**, plus roughly **430 tariff lines** linked to aerospace. In practice, Brazilian beef, coffee, orange juice, certain minerals and rare earths, **Embraer** aircraft, petroleum products — articles that the United States cannot afford to stop importing without economic pain — are all exempt.

The law firm King & Spalding noted that the tariff as proposed would ultimately exclude **more than half** of American imports from Brazil. This is therefore not a blanket tariff: it is a targeted pressure instrument designed to hurt where Brazil is vulnerable while preserving key American interests. This is commercial surgery, dressed up as an economic declaration of war.

*There is something intellectually honest about recognizing the sophistication of the maneuver. Washington is not trying to deprive itself of Brazilian coffee. It is trying to hurt Brazil's intermediate industries — steel, processed aluminum, chemicals — while protecting itself. This is intelligently calibrated protectionism, which does not make it any more acceptable on grounds of principle.*

## Lula's Reaction: Indignation, Resistance, and Diversification

### A President Who Refuses to Negotiate as a Small Country

**Lula**'s response to the USTR's announcement was immediate and sharp. In a public statement, he said he had learned the news **with indignation**, and declared that Brazil could not **accept this treatment**. In a New York Times interview published in July 2025, during the first tariff confrontation, Lula had said: **"At no point will Brazil negotiate as though it were a small country facing a large country."** This stance has not changed — if anything, it has hardened.

Lula had met Trump in Washington in May 2026, subsequently expressing some optimism about the evolution of bilateral relations. Two weeks later, the USTR published its determination. Brazil's disillusionment is therefore twofold: diplomatic and personal. According to Agência Brasil, the Brazilian government immediately sought to obtain a compromise deal before **July 15**, while acknowledging that the two meetings already held with the American side had not clarified which points were actually negotiable.

### Toward Accelerated Diversification of Partners

Facing the American wall, Brasília is looking elsewhere with renewed urgency. **China** has been Brazil's primary trading partner since 2009, and the recent tensions with Washington only accelerate this rebalancing. Wang Yi, China's foreign minister, expressed in a call with Celso Amorim, Brazil's presidential advisor, that Beijing **firmly** supports Brazil in its defense of national sovereignty and opposes **abusive tariffs**. The Chinese embassy in Brasília posted on X: **"Unity is strength."**

The **EU-Mercosur** agreement, long blocked by European resistance particularly from France, is regaining momentum in this context. Economists and analysts see in the American-Brazilian standoff an opportunity to accelerate a South American transatlantic treaty. Brazil holds the G20 presidency in 2025, and Lula has every interest in projecting himself as a leader of the **Global South** defiantly resisting American protectionism unilaterally.

*Where Trump believes he is weakening Lula, he is strengthening him. This is one of the most striking ironies of this trade policy. Brazilian polls published after the initial tariff escalations of the summer of 2025 showed a spectacular rebound in Lula's ratings, which had hit their historic low before the crisis. By seeking to punish a left-wing government, Washington provided that government with exactly the nationalist spring it needed for the October 2026 presidential election. This is a gross strategic mistake.*

## Rebuilding the Tariff Wall: Strategy and Timeline

### Section 122, Section 301, Section 232: The Three Pillars of the New Regime

After IEEPA's collapse, the Trump administration deployed a three-tier tariff architecture. **Section 122** of the 1974 Act provided the immediate safety net: a global 10% tariff applicable until **July 24, 2026**, with a legal ceiling of 15% and a maximum duration of 150 days. This transitional tariff expires just as the new Section 301 measures — including the Brazilian tariff — are due to take effect. The timing is not accidental: Washington wants a seamless transition in customs revenues.

**Section 232**, which covers national security and permits tariffs on steel, aluminum, copper, and automobiles, was never affected by the Supreme Court ruling. It remains fully in force. Treasury Secretary **Scott Bessent** had himself promised that the combination of Sections 122, 232, and 301 would produce tariff revenues **essentially unchanged** from the IEEPA era. This is a promise of continued economic pressure against a backdrop of legal reconstruction.

### A Global Agenda, Not an Isolated Brazilian Targeting

It would be reductive to view the proposal against Brazil as an isolated act. In the same period, the USTR launched Section 301 investigations targeting **16 economies** for industrial overcapacity and **60 economies** for insufficient action against forced labor — including Brazil, which also faces a potential additional tariff of **12.5%** on that basis, bringing the possible cumulative total to **37.5%**. This global tariff inflation is systemic: the goal is to rebuild under Section 301 the tariff structure that IEEPA erected but which collapsed under judicial blows.

BDO USA noted this in an analysis published on **June 19, 2026**: the Brazilian 25% proposal, while framed as a universal tariff on all goods, is in reality **narrower** than the previous IEEPA measures due to the extent of exemptions. What strikes on paper is less devastating in practice — but the political signal is intact.

*What worries me most about this global tariff reconstruction is its systematic character and its likely resistance to future legal challenges. Section 301 has withstood every legal challenge concerning China since 2018. If the Trump administration succeeds in building a Section 301 tariff wall as solid as the anti-China wall, we are entering an era of durable American protectionism that will reshape global trade for a decade.*

## Implications for Hemispheric Relations: Beyond Brazil

### Latin America Facing a New Commercial Monroe Doctrine

The offensive against Brasília fits within a broader vision of **Trump**'s policy toward Latin America. Since the start of his second term, he has multiplied interventions in regional affairs: military pressure on Venezuela, reinforced American presence in the Caribbean, support for right-wing governments in the region. Lula, figurehead of Latin American leftism, embodies opposition to this vision. Attacking Brazil commercially also sends a signal to the entire region: align yourselves, or pay the price.

This new **commercial Monroe Doctrine** weakens the hemisphere's multilateral architectures. The World Trade Organization (**WTO**) — which Brazil brought a case to during the first tariff wave of summer 2025 — is deliberately bypassed by the Section 301 logic. Washington does not need Geneva's approval to impose its tariffs: it only needs its own administrative process to be followed. This is an erosion of global trade governance as concerning as the tariffs themselves.

### The Temptation of the Global South and the Retreat of American Influence

The figures are eloquent. According to data cited by the Atlantic Council, Brazilian confidence in **China** as the world's leading economic power rose from **30% in 2023 to 36% in 2025**, while confidence in the United States fell from 42% to 40% over the same period. Simultaneously, **63.2%** of Brazilians had a negative opinion of Trump after the initial tariff escalations. This is not an anecdote: it is a structural trend eroding American influence in its own hemisphere.

Presidential advisor **Celso Amorim** told the Financial Times that Trump's criticisms paradoxically strengthen Brazil's ties with **BRICS** nations. That is exactly the opposite of what Washington is seeking to produce. By trying to punish Brasília for its alliances with Beijing, Washington is pushing Brasília further into Beijing's arms. This is a counterproductive feedback loop that should alarm everyone who genuinely cares about Western influence in the hemisphere.

*I am deeply pro-West. I believe the West must remain the center of gravity of the ordered world, of human rights, of liberal democracy. And it is precisely why this trade policy toward Brazil concerns me: it damages what we are seeking to defend. Every popularity point Trump scrapes in Brazil for Bolsonaro is one fewer point of Western influence within the world's 10th largest economy, a country of 215 million people voting in eighteen months.*

## The Deforestation Question: Legitimate Grievances, Obvious Instrumentalization

### An Environmental Argument in the Mouth of an Anti-Environment Administration

The **illegal deforestation** argument is perhaps the most revealing of this case's contradictions. The USTR determined that **Brazilian illegal deforestation practices are unreasonable and burden American commerce**. This formulation allows an environmental grievance to be invoked within a trade procedure. On the merits, deforestation is a real problem — but it has fallen massively under the Lula government, as the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment's data clearly shows for May 2026.

By contrast, the Trump administration has systematically dismantled American environmental protections since 2025: withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, weakening of the Environmental Protection Agency, promotion of fossil fuels. Invoking Brazilian deforestation as commercial justification from a position of American environmental abandonment is pure instrumentalization. Lula himself said it plainly: he was going to **prove the United States wrong** by presenting official deforestation data.

### The Risk of Precedent: When Everything Becomes a Trade Weapon

The Brazilian affair opens a **Pandora's box** in international trade jurisprudence. If a country's digital payment policy, deforestation, and anticorruption enforcement can be the subject of a Section 301 determination, then practically any domestic policy of a trading partner can be turned into a tariff grievance. This is a destabilizing extension of American trade law into areas of national sovereignty.

The Atlantic Council highlighted this in its June 12, 2026 analysis of Pix: the American action against Brazil's payment system should ring alarm bells in **Brussels**, which is developing the digital euro on a similar public infrastructure. If this precedent is validated, every central bank developing a national payment solution could one day find itself targeted by an American Section 301 investigation. This would amount to the forced privatization of the world's monetary infrastructure for the benefit of large American financial platforms.

*This Pix precedent seems to me the most dangerous element of this entire file, and it is the one we talk about least. This is not a tariff on coffee or soybeans — it is a signal sent to every government in the world that dares to build a national public digital infrastructure: do so, and you risk an American trade investigation. This is a new form of financial colonialism that needs to be named clearly.*

## The Real Economic Impact: Who Actually Pays the Tariffs?

### Brazil's Processing Industries on the Front Line

The list of exemptions reveals what will actually be hit. With the main raw products exempt — coffee, beef, oil, rare earths, Embraer aircraft — it is primarily **processed products and intermediate industrial goods** that would remain subject to the 25% tariff. Semi-finished iron and steel products, for example, represented **$3.36 billion** in Brazilian exports to the United States in 2025. These are also high-value-added, labor-intensive industries in Brazil.

It must be recalled — and this is a truth often omitted in the American debate — that import tariffs are in reality **taxes on American importers** and ultimately on American consumers. Goldman Sachs analysis cited during the summer 2025 crisis had estimated the effective tariff rate on Brazilian exports to the United States at approximately **30.8%**, given the numerous exemptions. If the 25% Section 301 tariff cumulates with other existing charges, certain Brazilian industrial segments could face a tariff wall of **37.5%** — a level that would make their exports to the United States virtually uncompetitive.

### An American Surplus Despite Everything: The Assumed Incoherence

As Agência Brasil noted, the Brazilian government advanced a cutting argument: the United States runs a **trade surplus** with Brazil. In terms of pure trade balance, Washington therefore has no deficit to correct with Brasília. Trump's traditional argument — tariffs are a response to American trade deficits — does not hold here. The USTR itself sidestepped this embarrassing problem by grounding its grievances not in the overall trade balance, but in sector-specific practices deemed unfair.

This sector-by-sector approach is actually more sophisticated, and potentially more durable, than the general reciprocal tariffs of 2025. It allows Washington to maintain asymmetric pressure — striking where Brazil is vulnerable, protecting itself where Brazil is indispensable — while benefiting from a solid legal foundation. This is precision coercive commerce, and the Brazilian companies in the targeted sectors have no illusions about what awaits them if negotiations fail before July 15.

*There is a biting irony in seeing Washington punish a trading partner with which it runs a surplus. I do not deny that sectoral grievances can be legitimate independently of the overall balance. But when Section 301 is used against a country with which one trades positively, the signal sent to other trading partners is clear: a surplus does not protect you, loyalty does not either, only capitulation works. This is a dangerous doctrine for the global trade order.*

## Europe's Posture Facing This Precedent

### Brussels Watches, the Digital Euro in Indirect Crosshairs

The Brazilian affair does not concern only the American hemisphere. **Brussels** is watching this development with growing anxiety. The European Central Bank is developing the **digital euro** — described by board member Piero Cipollone as **"a digital equivalent of banknotes"**, a public infrastructure on which private companies can build services. This description is strikingly similar to the Pix model. If the USTR can treat Pix as an unfair trade practice, the digital euro could one day find itself in the same crosshairs.

The Atlantic Council notes that the **ECB** has invoked payment sovereignty since 2019, developing a pan-European payments strategy in response to the continent's dependence on non-European systems — approximately **61%** of card transactions in the eurozone in 2022 used international card systems. Thirteen eurozone countries depended entirely on these foreign systems. The logic of monetary independence is sound — but it is now exposed to American trade charges if the Pix jurisprudence consolidates.

### India and the Temptation of a Coalition of National Payment Systems

Brazil is not alone in this situation. India's **Unified Payments Interface** — fast, low-cost, built on account-to-account transfers — is drawing similar attention from American officials. The USTR's 2026 National Trade Estimate report mentions that India's electronic payment policies **appear to favor domestic providers** at the expense of foreign ones. The logic is the same. If Pix is condemnable, UPI may be too.

This American approach risks provoking exactly what Washington fears most: a coalition of emerging powers seeking to build **financial architectures** alternative to the dollar and American platforms, accelerating the fragmentation of the international monetary system. China, Brazil, India, and potentially Europe could find themselves on the same defensive line against American payment platform imperialism — a geopolitical alliance that Washington would be hard-pressed to manage.

*I will be direct: the question of payment sovereignty is one of the most important of the next decade, and it goes far beyond the trade quarrel between Washington and Brasília. The West cannot claim to defend the sovereignty of nations while imposing the commercial dominance of its own financial platforms. This is contradictory — and dangerous. Trump is wrong on this point, and Europe should say so clearly rather than watching in silence.*

## The 2026 Brazilian Election in the Shadow of Tariffs

### American Pressure as Fuel for Lula's Campaign

President **Lula da Silva** has already announced that if necessary, he would be a candidate for a **fourth term** in the October 2026 presidential election. His approval rating had hit its historic low in early 2025 — before Washington's tariff threats provided a rally-around-the-flag effect. According to Atlas/Bloomberg data published in July 2025, after the first tariff wave, Lula's approval had for the first time since October 2024 surpassed his disapproval rate: **50.2%** approval against 49.7% disapproval.

The Genial/Quaest survey of July 2025 showed a rebound to **43%** approval, up from 40% in May. And above all, **61%** of Brazilians felt Lula represented Brazil better than Bolsonaro on the world stage — against 51% in November 2023. American tariffs paradoxically strengthened the Lulist narrative: sovereign Brazil, standing up to intimidation from the North.

### Bolsonaro Out of the Game, Lula Master of the Field

Brazil's Supreme Court declared **Bolsonaro ineligible until 2030**, for abuse of political power and misuse of media. His ally Trump can wave tariffs in retaliation — that will not change the Brazilian judicial verdict. The trial for attempted coup continues independently of Washington's pressures, and Lula emerges from it stronger in his image as a defender of democratic institutions.

This political dimension is fundamental for understanding why the Trump administration is trapped in a strategic dead end in Brazil. Tariffs do not free Bolsonaro. They do not suspend judicial proceedings. They do not change the electoral verdict of 2022. On the other hand, they give Lula exactly what he needs for the 2026 election: a powerful external enemy, a national resistance narrative, and enhanced international legitimacy.

*What perplexes me is the apparent inability of the Trump strategy to grasp this dynamic. Using trade tariffs to influence the sovereign judicial process of a potential ally is not only ineffective — it is counterproductive. Every tariff threat strengthens Lula, weakens American influence, and pushes Brazil toward China. This is not foreign policy: it is American domestic politics dressed up as diplomacy.*

## The Critical Timeline: From July to Summer 2026

### A Tight Calendar That Leaves Little Room for Compromise

The timeline of this trade crisis is precise. The formal investigation had been launched on **July 15, 2025**. The USTR determination was published on **June 1, 2026**. Written comments from interested parties were due before **July 1, 2026**. Requests to testify at the public hearing had to be filed before **June 22, 2026**. The official USTR public hearing is set for **July 6, 2026**. And the legal deadline for the USTR to make a final decision is **July 15, 2026** — exactly one year after the investigation was launched.

This extremely tight timeline leaves Brazil very little time to negotiate a deal. Planalto teams themselves acknowledge that negotiations are **stuck**, with the Americans not having clarified which points are actually negotiable. Certain issues — Pix, Brazil's trade agreements with China and Mexico — are considered non-negotiable by Washington but also by Brasília, which refuses to break its treaties with other partners to satisfy unilateral American demands.

### Two Scenarios from July 15

From **July 15, 2026**, two scenarios emerge. In the first, Trump decides to finalize the 25% tariff — possibly combined with the additional 12.5% tariff linked to forced labor, bringing the total to **37.5%**. Brazilian processing industries absorb a direct shock, bilateral relations plunge, and Brasília intensifies its geopolitical diversification toward China and the European Mercosur. In the second scenario, a last-minute deal is reached — perhaps in the form of symbolic Brazilian concessions on a few technical issues such as ethanol or intellectual property — allowing Trump to declare a victory.

According to sources close to Planalto cited by Metrópoles and Poder360 in mid-June 2026, the second hypothesis is deemed **unlikely**. The Brazilian government sees no flexibility on the American side and considers that tariffs will likely be finalized. This Brazilian pessimism is not resignation: it is a cold reading of the balance of power and the American political calendar, where a deal with a Latin American left-wing government brings no electoral dividend to Trump.

*If I had to bet, I would bet on the tariff's finalization. Not because it is the best decision for long-term American interests — it is not — but because Trump has no incentive to give a political gift to Lula eighteen months before the Brazilian election. The logic of punishment prevails over the logic of compromise. This is what makes this affair so concerning: it is not governed by commercial reason, but by political revenge.*

## Conclusion: A Trade Counterstrike That Misses Its Political Target

### The Paradox of a Weapon That Strengthens Its Adversary

The USTR's proposed **25% tariff** against Brazil is, in many respects, a show of force that turns against its author. Legally solid, thanks to Section 301's court-resistance, it achieves its goal of economic damage to certain Brazilian sectors. But politically, it gives **Lula** exactly what he needed: a credible enemy, a national cause, and a sovereignty narrative that mobilizes. Brazilian polls demonstrated it at every escalation: American pressure gives the Brazilian president popularity points.

On hemispheric relations, the assessment is even darker. Every American tariff against Brazil is an invitation to Beijing to consolidate its presence in the Brazilian economy. China has not missed the opportunity — Wang Yi said it explicitly. Brazil is exploring the EU-Mercosur agreement with renewed enthusiasm. BRICS nations are closing ranks. And American influence in its own hemisphere retreats as resentment accumulates.

### The West Does Not Win by Punishing Its Potential Allies

The uncomfortable truth must be told: Brazil is not an enemy of the West. It is a democracy of 215 million people, a first-rank economy, an indispensable partner for the energy transition — in terms of rare earths, bioethanol, and agribusiness. Treating Brasília as an adversarial economy because its president is left-wing and because it respects the verdicts of its courts is a category error. **Trump**, as a necessary evil for recalibrating certain unbalanced trade relationships, can be defended on other issues — not on this one.

The West will not strengthen its center of gravity by turning its natural partners in the Global South into forced adversaries. The real threat to the ordered world is **China**, Russia, and their allies — not a Brazil that votes, condemns coups, and seeks to trade with everyone. Every tariff dollar imposed on Brasília is a dividend offered to Beijing. That calculation, evidently, has not yet convinced the White House.

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

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When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary Sources

- [USTR — Official Section 301 Determination on Brazil, Federal Register — June 1, 2026](https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/Press/Releases/2026/Brazil%20Section%20301%20Actionability%20and%20Proposed%20Action%20FRN%206-1-26%20Final.pdf)

- [Atlantic Council — Analysis: As the U.S. targets Brazil's Pix payment system, Europe should pay close attention — June 12, 2026](https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/econographics/as-the-us-targets-brazils-payment-system-europe-should-pay-close-attention/)

- [BDO USA — Analysis of major Section 301 developments involving Brazil — June 19, 2026](https://www.bdo.com/insights/tax/ustr-announces-major-section-301-developments-involving-brazil-vietnam-and-forced-labor-enforcement)

### Secondary Sources

- [Peacock Tariff Consulting — Full analysis of the 25% Brazil tariff proposal, Section 301 — June 15, 2026](https://www.peacocktariffconsulting.com/trump-proposes-25-tariff-on-some-brazilian-goodsan-analysis-of-the-june-2026-section-301-determination-the-trade-practices-it-targets-the-products-in-the-crosshairs-and-what-comes-next/)

- [Atlantic Council — Trump's tariffs are boosting Lula and reshaping Brazilian geopolitics — August 6, 2025](https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/trumps-tariffs-are-giving-lula-a-boost-and-shifting-brazils-geopolitics/)

- [Al Jazeera — Lula says Brazil cannot accept treatment after new U.S. tariffs proposed — June 3, 2026](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/3/lula-says-brazil-cannot-accept-treatment-after-new-us-tariffs-proposed)

- [Agência Brasil — Brazil aims to convince U.S. that a deal is better than the 25% tariff — June 8, 2026](https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/en/internacional/noticia/2026-06/brazil-aims-convince-us-deal-better-25-tariff)

- [Metrópoles — Planalto shifts posture, sees 25% tariff negotiations with U.S. stuck — June 18, 2026](https://www.metropoles.com/brasil/planalto-muda-postura-e-ve-negociacao-de-tarifa-de-25-com-eua-travada)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/commentaire-bresil-a-25-la-riposte-commerciale-qui-vise-lula-et-defie-l-hemisphe