Brazil’s socialist government on Monday announced that it requested consultations with the World Trade Organization (WTO) over the new tariffs recently imposed by the U.S. on the South American nation.
President Donald Trump announced this month that a large list of Brazilian goods entering the U.S. will be subject to an additional 25-percent tariff after the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) found the South American nation engaging in unfair trading practices to the detriment of U.S. farmers, workers, innovators, and exporters. Additionally, Brazil is also among the list of 60 countries that is subject to new tariffs of up to 12.5 percent in response to those countries’ failure to enforce prohibitions on slave-made goods.
The Brazilian government has fiercely rejected both sets of tariffs, vowing to fight them at the WTO.
In line with the Brazilian government’s plans to challenge the U.S. tariffs at the WTO, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry disclosed on Monday night that it filed a request for consultations at the WTO’s dispute settlement system pertaining to the two sets of tariffs announced this month.
“Brazil considers the U.S. measures to be unjustified and inconsistent with U.S. obligations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1994 (GATT 1994) and the WTO Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes,” the Foreign Ministry’s statement read in part.
According to the Brazilian government, the 12.5 percent tariffs lack “legal basis under domestic law to support its protectionist trade policy.” Furthermore, the administration of radical leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva accused the USTR of “manipulating” an “issue of great importance to human rights and workers’ rights movement.”
With regard to the 25-percent tariffs imposed in mid-July, Lula has publicly condemned them as being part of an purported plot involving conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro and his family — accusing the Bolsonaros of being “false patriots who orchestrated and publicly defended actions against our country, driven by electoral objectives.”
The Washington Post published an opinion piece on Sunday penned by Lula titled, “Lula to Trump: ‘No One Will Defeat Us Through Lies.’” In the piece, the Brazilian president criticized the “strategic mistake” of new tariffs and rejected the arguments presented by the administration of President Donald Trump that led to their imposition. According to Lula, the tariffs will “harm” America’s economy and its partnership with Brazil.
Lula prefaced his arguments by referring to President Trump’s June 2025 executive order declaring Brazil a “national security threat” to the United States and imposing a 50-percent tariff on Brazilian goods. The executive order cited the persecution of former President Bolsonaro led by Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF) Justice Alexandre de Moraes as one of several instances of human rights abuses committed in Brazil that led to the tariffs. According to Lula, the reference to Bolsonaro made the “political motivation behind the measure explicit.”
“In my conversations with President Trump since then, I have stressed that we do not need to share the same worldview to pursue a mutually beneficial relationship between our countries,” Lula wrote. “After all, we lead the two largest democracies and economies in the Americas.”
“Negotiations between us, together with rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court, dismantled the initial version of the sweeping tariff measures,” he continued. “Yet this month, disregarding dozens of meetings between our teams, solid technical arguments and documents I personally handed to President Trump, the U.S. government imposed new tariffs on Brazil ranging from 12.5 percent to 37.5 percent.”
Lula, citing the Swiss-based independent organization Global Trade Alert, affirmed that Brazil and Turkey now stand as the second most-tariffed nations by the U.S. behind China despite the “U.S. surplus with Brazil in bilateral trade in goods and services, which has totaled $428 billion over 15 consecutive years.”
Although the Brazilian government firmly expressed its intention to challenge the United States’ tariffs at the WTO, unnamed sources from the Planalto presidential palace affirmed to Globonews over the weekend that the efforts would be merely “symbolic” and to “mark distance” with the United States.
The Brazilian outlet Poder 360 pointed out on Tuesday that, although the World Trade Organization may deem the tariffs as “inconsistent with international rules” and recommend their suspension, the organization has no ability to force the United States to rescind the tariffs, issue reimbursements, or temporarily suspend the tariffs while it reviews the situation.
The WTO’s review process may reportedly last up to 60 days. After that time, Poder 360 detailed, Brazil may consider retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
