{"id":916,"date":"2025-07-17T17:18:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T17:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/916\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T17:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T17:18:11","slug":"us-launches-probe-into-brazils-trade-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/916\/","title":{"rendered":"US launches probe into Brazil\u2019s trade practices"},"content":{"rendered":"

CNN
\n \u00a0\u2014\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n The United States has launched an investigation into \u201cunfair\u201d trading practices by Brazil, escalating President Donald Trump\u2019s spat with the world\u2019s 10th-largest economy over issues including the criminal case against its former President Jair Bolsonaro.\n <\/p>\n

\n The investigation will focus on digital trade and electronic payment services, preferential tariffs, and anti-corruption interference, as well as intellectual property protection, to determine whether there are \u201cunreasonable or discriminatory and burden or restrict\u201d American commerce, according to a statement by the United States Trade Representative<\/a> (USTR).\n <\/p>\n

\n It will also look into ethanol market access and illegal deforestation.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAt President Trump\u2019s direction, I am launching a Section 301 investigation into Brazil\u2019s attacks on American social media companies as well as other unfair trading practices that harm American companies, workers, farmers, and technology innovators,\u201d Trade Ambassador Jamieson Greer said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI have determined that Brazil\u2019s tariff and non-tariff barriers merit a thorough investigation, and potentially, responsive action.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 is designed to address unfair foreign practices affecting US commerce, and could be used to respond to unreasonable, or discriminatory foreign government practices, according to the USTR statement.\n <\/p>\n

\n This comes after Trump sent Brazilian President Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva a tariff letter last week<\/a>, accusing him of undertaking a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d over charges against Bolsonaro.\n <\/p>\n

\n The right-wing former president, who has boasted of his close ties with Trump, is currently on trial for allegedly attempting a coup to overturn Lula\u2019s 2022 election victory.\n <\/p>\n

\n In its investigation announcement, the USTR expressed concerns that Brazilian authorities could undermine the competitiveness of American digital companies by retaliating against them for failing to censor political speech or restricting their ability to operate in the country.\n <\/p>\n

\n The investigation also appears to target Pix, a Brazilian government-developed digital payment system which has experienced explosive adoption since it launched in 2020.\n <\/p>\n

\n In a document<\/a> accompanying the statement, the USTR said that Brazil engages in \u201ca number of unfair practices with respect to electronic payment services, including but not limited to advantaging its government-developed electronic payment services.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The USTR also accused Brazil of disadvantaging American exports by offering lower tariffs to \u201ccertain globally competitive trade partners,\u201d failing to protect American intellectual property rights, and backtracking from its earlier willingness to grant virtually duty-free access for US ethanol and imposing instead a \u201csubstantially higher tariff.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Most countries targeted by Trump\u2019s tariffs are those with which the US runs a trade deficit \u2013 meaning the US imports more goods from the nation than it exports to it.\n <\/p>\n

\n But the US ran a $6.8 billion trade surplus with Brazil last year, and it has not had a trade deficit with the country for 18 years.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n \ufeffOn top of country-specific tariffs, Brazil has also been targeted by Trump\u2019s threat of a 10% levy on imports from the BRICS<\/a> economic group of 10 emerging-market nations, of which Brazil is a founding member along with Russia, India and China.\n <\/p>\n

\n The US president said last week that he plans to impose the tariff to protect the US dollar from potential threats to its dominance, without providing more details on when he would do so.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump\u2019s letter to Brazil last week \u2013 threatening a crippling 50% tariff \u2013 stood out for the use of the trade\ufeff levy to influence the country\u2019s domestic policies, unlike the letters to 21 other countries issued last week based on US trade deficits.\n <\/p>\n

\n He justified the tariff by citing Brazil\u2019s \u201cattacks on free elections\u201d and Americans\u2019 free speech, accusing Brazilian courts of issuing \u201cunlawful\u201d censorship orders to American social media companies and threatening them with hefty fines.\n <\/p>\n

\n Immediately after Trump issued the letter last week, Lula vowed to reciprocate should Trump follow through on the threat to imp\ufeffose the staggering tariff.\n <\/p>\n

\n On Friday, Lula said Brazil ought to be the side imposing tariffs, given the US trade surplus.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe United States does not have a trade deficit with Brazil. It\u2019s Brazil that has a deficit with the US,\u201d he told a crowd of supporters. \u201cI should be one taxing them.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The Brazilian president said he plans to \u201cfight\u201d US tariffs in any way he can, including by filing a complaint with the World Trade Organization, and discussing them with other members of the BRICS bloc, of which Brazil is currently chair.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CNN \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 The United States has launched an investigation into \u201cunfair\u201d trading practices by Brazil, escalating President Donald…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,164],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}