Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said he does not fear getting on the wrong side of Donald Trump, as South America’s largest economy braces for the introduction of 50% tariffs on Friday.
Trump announced plans to slap Brazil with tariffs on 1 August earlier this month, partly in retaliation for a supposed political “witch-hunt” against his far-right ally Jair Bolsonaro. The former Brazilian president faces decades in jail for allegedly plotting a military coup to stop Lula from taking office after the former lost the 2022 presidential election.
In a rare interview with the New York Times, clearly designed to send a message to the White House on the eve of a potential trade war, Lula urged the US president to avoid creating a “lose-lose” relationship between two of the largest economies in the Americas and said he did not fear publicly criticizing Trump, whom he recently called an “emperor”.
“There’s no reason to be afraid. I am worried, obviously, because we have economic interests, political interests, technological interests. But at no point will Brazil negotiate as if it were a small country up against a big country. Brazil will negotiate as a sovereign country,” said Lula, who has enjoyed a bounce in the polls after Trump’s threat.
Lula indicated his officials were willing to negotiate economic issues with the US: “In politics between two states, the will of neither should prevail. We always need to find the middle ground. This is achieved not by puffing out your chest and shouting about things you can’t deliver, nor by bowing your head and simply saying ‘amen’ to whatever the United States wants.”
But Brazil’s president indicated that the political future of Bolsonaro – whose plot allegedly included plans to assassinate Lula – was a judicial matter and therefore non-negotiable. “Brazil has a constitution, and the former president is being tried with a full right to a defense,” Lula insisted.
The 79-year-old leftist said his message for Trump was “that Brazilians and Americans do not deserve to be victims of politics, if the reason President Trump is imposing this tax on Brazil is because of the case against former President Bolsonaro”.
Trump’s decision to cite Bolsonaro’s plight as one of the main justifications for his move against Brazil has left many observers doubting that the “Trump always chickens out” (Taco) maxim will apply to the Friday deadline facing Lula’s government. The US president has likened Bolsonaro’s “disgraceful” treatment to attempts to prosecute him after he unsuccessfully tried to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election. Bolsonaro has denied plotting a coup but has admitted seeking “alternative ways” of stopping Lula from taking power.
“I’d be very surprised if Trump pulled back in this case, not just because of his friendship with the Bolsonaro family … but above all because in Trump’s mind it reflects his own trauma,” the American Brazil specialist Brian Winter told the Estado de São Paulo newspaper this week.
Lula hinted he believed a retreat might be possible, comparing the current situation to unfounded fears over the millennium bug. “Do you remember when we were about to turn from 1999 to 2000, and there was worldwide panic that the computer systems were going to crash? Nothing happened,” said Lula, although he admitted he could not be certain “nothing will happen”.
