Trump’s Collision Course With Brazil / How U.S. Policy Is Playing Into China’s Hands—and Remaking Latin America

Sept. 2 (foreignaffairs.com) In April, when Donald Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs on dozens of countries, Brazil emerged largely unscathed. Brazilian exports to the United States became subject to ten percent levies, the baseline rate, escaping the debilitating tariffs applied to the goods of some U.S. allies. In late July, however, Trump declared that Brazilian exports would now face tariffs of 50 percent, one of the highest rates Washington has imposed anywhere in the world. The announcement has raised the prospect of a trade war between the United States and Latin America’s largest economy. It also indicates Trump’s willingness to use tariffs not only to force more beneficial trade deals or balance trade deficits but also as a tool to influence the domestic politics of a foreign country.

Announcing the new rate, the White House stated that “Brazil’s politically motivated persecution, intimidation, harassment, censorship, and prosecution of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro”—a Trump ally on trial for staging an insurrection after his failed reelection bid in 2022—amounts to “serious human rights abuses that have undermined the rule of law in Brazil.” The United States has revoked the visas of eight of Brazil’s 11 Supreme Federal Court justices and imposed economic sanctions, under the Global Magnitsky Act, against the justice Alexandre de Moraes, who is overseeing Bolsonaro’s case. (The former president’s trial begins on Tuesday.) These measures come in response to the court’s central role in prosecuting Bolsonaro and his supporters for their involvement in an attempted post-election coup. They constitute very public attacks on the legitimacy of Brazil’s democratic institutions. The Brazilian government has perceived these actions, coupled with the new tariffs, as egregious violations of its sovereignty and as deliberate attempts to weaken the position of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who defeated Bolsonaro, ahead of planned elections in October 2026.

Washington has undermined its credibility as a reliable partner to a friend with whom it has maintained more than two centuries of diplomatic and economic cooperation. Rather than furthering American (or Trump’s) interests, these measures have triggered a backlash in Brazil. Public opinion surveys indicate that a majority of Brazilians disapprove of Trump’s actions, which have helped erode support for Bolsonaro, weaken the ideological coherence of Brazil’s right-wing economic bloc, and alienate segments of the business elite. As a result, even conservative sectors once eager to play Washington’s tune are now more inclined to support the Brazilian government’s strategy of diversifying economic partnerships and reducing dependence on the United States.

The more the United States seeks to undermine Brazil’s sovereignty and destabilize its democratic institutions—including by implicitly advocating regime change—the more geopolitical space it creates for China to expand its already considerable influence in the country. Beijing has been steadily deepening its presence in Brazil through investments in critical areas such as energy, agriculture and food security, defense, advanced technology, automobile manufacturing, a joint satellite program, and strategic infrastructure such as ports. Most notably, China is building an ambitious transcontinental railway in Brazil to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. These developments not only erode Washington’s standing in Brazil but also recalibrate the broader regional balance of power.

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