Presidential pre-candidate Flávio Bolsonaro and the Workers’ Party (PT), of Lula da Silva, exchanged criticism today on the first day that the new 25% tariffs imposed by the United States on Brazilian products came into effect.
On social media, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro made a football analogy by accusing the Brazilian President of having caused a penalty, and, therefore, the country was punished with the tariffs.
“After much provocation and effort by the Brazilian Government, today a new tariff war against Brazil began to take effect. Unfortunately, Lula dug this penalty,” he wrote on the social network X.
In Brazil, the press, authorities and politicians call Donald Trump’s Government’s surtax policy “tarifaço.”
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Flávio Bolsonaro also said he “has full conviction” that, should he be elected president of Brazil in the October elections, he will manage to reverse the tariffs, and called the PT the “Party of the Tariff War.”
“You can be certain that, in the same way I mobilized all my strength and went door to door trying to avoid this, I will do the same in 2027. I have not yet given up on reversing these tariffs,” he wrote.
The PT, in turn, announced it will launch the campaign “Brazil Does Not Give Up” in response to Washington’s tariffs and, in a statement, accused the Bolsonaro family of encouraging the measure.
“The attacks promoted by the United States against the Brazilian economy, encouraged by the Bolsonaro family, demonstrate that there are those willing to place political and personal interests above the interests of the country,” the statement reads.
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Lula’s party also stated that the campaign will be run on social media with content defending the importance of the Pix electronic payment system, national industry, rare earths and Brazil’s strategic mineral wealth.
“We will speak directly with the population about the impacts of the attacks on the Brazilian economy and reaffirm a central message: Brazil owns its own destiny and does not accept anyone deciding its future in its place,” it adds.
Last week, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) confirmed the application of the new tariff on Brazilian products, on the understanding that Brazil has adopted “unfair” trade practices toward American companies, and cites, for example, Pix.
Pix is an electronic payment and instant transfer system created by the Central Bank of Brazil, which allows sending and receiving money in up to 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
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The Brazilian Government went so far as to classify the measure as a “regrettable milestone” in bilateral relations, criticizing Washington’s decision to apply the tariff, and announced it would invoke the Reciprocity Law against the Americans.
According to the Brazilian Government, 18% of Brazilian exports to the US will be affected, which corresponds to 7.2 billion dollars (6.28 billion euros at the current exchange rate), based on estimates from consolidated 2025 data.
In recent days, Lula da Silva again referred to the Bolsonaro family as “traitors of the homeland” on the understanding that they acted together with the White House since last year to apply tariffs as a way of interfering in Brazilian politics. In response to a provocation from the US Secretary of State, Lula also challenged Marco Rubio to set up a committee in Brazil to support Flávio in the general elections in October.
During a public hearing promoted by the USTR earlier this month, Flávio Bolsonaro suggested that the US postpone the application of the tariffs until after the elections, because, he alleged, the measure, negative for Brazil, would help Lula politically.
