Lula to sign Brazil's new reciprocal tariff law amid US trade tensions
"Brazil is a sovereign nation with independent institutions and will not accept any form of tutelage," Lula said firmly in an X post.He added that the legal matters concerning Brazil's internal governance -- including investigations related to past coup attempts -- are handled solely by Brazil's Judicial Branch and should not be interfered with by any foreign country.BRAZIL'S EFFORTS TO AVOID TRADE CONFLICTWhile Vice President Geraldo Alckmin said on Monday that the government has set up a working group to discuss the US tariffs with business leaders. The first meeting will take place Tuesday morning, followed by another session later in the day with agribusiness leaders.The group plans to keep meeting regularly to find the best solutions. Alckmin said that the tariffs would also hurt US companies, so Brazil will talk to them as well. "US companies will also be hit by the tariffs announced by the US, so we will also talk to them," he said.BRAZIL CHALLENGES US TRADE FIGURESMeanwhile, Lula questioned the accuracy of US trade deficit claims, saying that the US has actually had a trade surplus with Brazil."The claim regarding a US trade deficit in its commercial relationship with Brazil is inaccurate. Statistics from the US government itself show a surplus of $410 billion in the trade of goods and services with Brazil over the past 15 years," Lula explained.- EndsWith inputs from ReutersTune InMust Watch
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
16 minutes ago
- Business Standard
Balasore student death: Rahul says country wants answers not PM's silence
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the Odisha college student who set herself ablaze following alleged sexual harassment by a professor died, and said the daughters of the country are burning and dying while the PM is sitting silent. Gandhi said the country does not want the PM's silence, it wants answers. His remarks came after the Odisha college student, who set herself ablaze following alleged sexual harassment by a professor, died at AIIMS in Bhubaneswar. The second-year integrated student of Fakir Mohan (Autonomous) College, Balasore, died on Monday night, after fighting for her life for three days. She took the extreme step on Saturday over alleged inaction against the professor and suffered 95 per cent burns. In a post in Hindi on X, Gandhi said the death of a daughter fighting for justice in Odisha is a "direct murder by the BJP system". That brave student raised her voice against sexual exploitation -- but instead of justice, she was threatened, harassed and humiliated repeatedly, the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha said. Those who were supposed to protect her, kept oppressing her, Gandhi said. "Like every time, the BJP system kept protecting the accused - and forced an innocent daughter to set herself on fire," he said. "This is not suicide, it is an organised murder by the system," Gandhi alleged. "Modi ji, be it Odisha or Manipur - the daughters of the country are burning, breaking down, dying. And you? Are sitting silent. The country does not want your silence, it wants answers," the former Congress president said. The daughters of India want security and justice, Gandhi added. The woman was first admitted to the Balasore district hospital and then shifted to AIIMS Bhubaneswar for advanced treatment. She was undergoing treatment in the ICU, Department of Burn Centre, according to officials. "The patient was resuscitated with IV fluids, IV antibiotics, intubated and put on mechanical ventilation. Despite adequate resuscitation and all possible supportive management, including renal replacement therapy at the Burns ICU, she could not be revived and was declared clinically dead at 11:46 pm on July 14," the Department of Burn Centre said in a statement.
Mint
42 minutes ago
- Mint
US Senators urge crushing sanctions on India, China, Brazil over Russia ties: Hit them with 500% tariffs
In a dramatic escalation of Washington's rhetoric, senior US Senators Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal have called for imposing crippling tariffs — as high as 500 per cent — on countries including India, China, and Brazil if they continue business with Russia amid its ongoing war in Ukraine. The bipartisan push comes as President Donald Trump announced plans for 100 per cent "secondary tariffs" on Moscow should President Vladimir Putin fail to negotiate peace within 50 days. "We'll continue to push for Senator Graham & my Russia Sanctions bill with even tougher penalties to deter India, China, Brazil & others from fuelling Putin's war machine. Congressional action sends a powerful message of support," Senator Richard Blumenthal posted on X. A joint statement by Graham and Blumenthal accused India, China, and Brazil of 'propping up Putin's war machine' by purchasing cheap Russian oil and gas. The statement warned that if these countries did not halt such trade, they could face tariffs of up to 500 per cent. During a high-profile meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Trump said: "One of the reasons that you're here today is to hear that we are very unhappy — I am — with Russia. But we will discuss that maybe another day. But we're very, very unhappy with them, and we're going to be doing very severe tariffs if we don't have a deal in 50 days. Tariffs at about 100 percent. You'd call them secondary tariffs. But today, we're going to talk about something else." The senior US Senators' statement underscored Donald Trump's tariff threat as a strategic move: 'The ultimate hammer to bring about the end of this war will be tariffs against countries, like China, India and Brazil, that prop up Putin's war machine by purchasing cheap Russian oil and gas. President Trump's decision to announce the implementation of 100 percent secondary tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil and gas if a peace agreement is not reached in the next 50 days is a real executive hammer to drive the parties to the negotiating table. The goal is not more tariffs and sanctions — the goal is to entice Putin to come to the peace table.' Democratic Senator Blumenthal, in a post, lauded the US President's decision, calling it a "breakthrough step" while slamming Russia's Putin by calling him a "thug". He further called for pushing the bill, "Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025", introduced by him and Senator Graham on April 1, noting that the bill will impose "tougher penalties to deter India, China, Brazil" and other countries that are still in business with Moscow. Earlier this month, India's External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar confirmed that India's concerns on energy security have been communicated to Senator Graham. Speaking at a press conference, Jaishankar said: "Regarding Senator Lindsey Graham's bill, any development which is happening in the US Congress is of interest to us if it impacts our interest or could impact our interest. So we have been in touch with Senator Lindsey Graham. The embassy, ambassador have been in touch. Our concerns and our interests on energy, security have been made conversant to him. So we'll then have to cross that bridge when we come to it. If we come to it."
Mint
43 minutes ago
- Mint
Trump threatened Brazil with 50% tariffs. How he is using trade as a political cudgel.
He did it for Mark Carney in Canada. He did it for Anthony Albanese in Australia. Did Donald Trump just secure re-election for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil? That is investors biggest worry about the U.S. president's threat to slam 50% tariffs on imports from the Latin American giant. 'I'm most concerned that what just happened will help Lula a lot," said Thierry Larose, portfolio manager for emerging markets local debt at Vontobel asset management, using the third-term Brazilian leader's nickname. 'That is why I'm cautious on the market." Equity investors apparently agree. The iShares Brazil exchange-traded fund has sold off 5% since Trump's announcement last Wednesday. Brazilian assets have been on a tear for most of this year. Stocks are up by nearly a quarter. The real has climbed 12% against the dollar, the best-preforming major currency outside Russia's thinly traded ruble. One reason is a low starting point, said Malcolm Dorson, head of emerging markets strategy at Global X ETFs: Stocks cratered by 35% in 2024. Another is expectation that the 79-year-old Lula will be out of a job after elections in October 2026, with approval ratings stuck below 30%. 'When Lula had brain surgery in December, the market rose 5% in an hour," Dorson noted. Trump's announcement less than a week ago looks like political manna for the beleaguered leftist veteran. Brazil has relatively little to fear economically from Washington's wrath. Exports to the U.S. account for less than 2% of gross domestic product, compared with 30% for Mexico, Larose calculated. And the top exports—coffee, crude oil and iron ore—can be sold elsewhere. Trump's tariff letter mentioned trade only parenthetically. His principal demand was that Brazilian courts drop their prosecution—'witch hunt," as he put it—of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who was indicted in February for conspiring to violently overturn the 2022 election. Bolsonaro lost to Lula by less than 2 percentage points. Brazilian voters have high regard for their judiciary, said Duncan Wood, a senior adviser at the Inter-American Dialogue, a U.S.-based think tank for Western Hemispere issues. 'There's traditionally been a high level of trust in Brazilian courts as apolitical," Wood said. That has enabled Lula to respond as defender of national sovereignty. Trump's move was 'a total lack of respect," Lula told local journalists. 'I have nothing to talk about with him." Lula 3.0 has, in fact, seen more impasse and muddle-through than leftist revolution, noted Sarah Glendon, senior sovereign analyst for Latin America at Columbia Threadneedle Investments. A more conservative Congress has bottled up Lula's signature populist initiative, eliminating income tax for anyone earning real 5,000 ($899) a month or less. Many of Brazil's fiscal challenges, like indexation of benefits and many wages, are embedded in the country's constitution. That means any government will struggle to reduce debt payments, which eat up 30% of government revenue, or to keep inflation under control, Glendon asserted. 'It's not necessarily the case that the fiscal position would be better without Lula," she concluded. On the other hand, with 95% of its debt issued in local currency, Brazilian credit is in no medium-term peril. Still, investors are gaming out the complex political calculus of the next 15 months. Brazilian elections turn more on charismatic personalities than parties, Dorson said. Lula, dominant on the left, is dangling a new run despite his age and health, with no clear successor if he steps aside. Bolsonaro has been banned from running, even if he stays out of jail. But he remains 'the puppet master" on the right, Dorson sais. Markets are hoping Bolsonaro endorses Tarcisio de Freitas, a center-rightist who has earned high marks as governor of São Paulo state, Brazil's largest. 'Freitas getting elected could release the mother of all rallies for Brazil," Dorson predicted. Bolsonaro might also name his son Eduardo, who has been lobbying Trump for him in the U.S., or wife Michelle as a stand-in. To Wood, of the Inter-American Dialogue, what is clear is that Trump's latest sallies have dimmed hopes of a U.S. reboot with Latin America, which were kindled by the appointment of Marco Rubio as secretary of state. Rubio is the son of Cuban immigrants and speaks Spanish. Trump twinned his threat to Brazil with the promise of a 50% tariff on copper, which would strike at the economic lifeline of two more Southern neighbors, Chile and Peru. The president capped his week by setting a 30% tariff on Mexican imports as of Aug. 1. 'There was actually hope in the beginning of this administration," Wood said. Instead, leaders across the region are weighing other geopolitical options. 'It's not like we can't survive without the U.S.," Lula told a Brazilian interviewer. His political survival might even look better. Write to editors@
