The tariff Bizarro World gets more bizarre.
50 Percent Tariff on Brazil
NBC News reports Trump hits Brazil with 50% tariff, in part due to trial of ally Jair Bolsonaro
President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he planned to hit Brazil with a 50% tariff, in part because of the treatment of its former president Jair Bolsonaro, his political ally.
In a letter on his Truth Social social media network, Trump told current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that “the way Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro … is an international disgrace.”
Trump has fiercely defended Bolsonaro, who is sometimes referred to as the “Trump of the tropics,” as Bolsonaro faces charges that he plotted to overturn his 2022 election loss.
“This trial should not be taking place,” Trump added.
Trump’s Letter to Brazil
Trump’s Letter to Brazil posted on Truth Social also moans about trade imbalances.
Starting August 1, 2025, we will charge Brazil a tariff of 50% on any ana all Brazilian products sent into the United States … Please understand that the 50% number is far less than what is needed to have a level playing field with your country.
US Trade With Brazil
Trump copied his nonsensical rant from his other tariff letters without thinking, or perhaps even knowing, the US has a trade surplus with Brazil for 17 straight years.
Brazil threatened to retaliate, and they easily can.
US Exports to Brazil
- Mineral Fuels and Oils: This category, including items like refined petroleum and crude oil, is a major export from the U.S. to Brazil.
- Aircraft, Spacecraft, and Parts: The U.S. exports a significant amount of aircraft and related equipment to Brazil, including civilian aircraft engines.
- Machinery, Nuclear Reactors, and Boilers: This category includes a variety of industrial machinery and equipment.
- Electrical and Electronic Equipment: This encompasses a range of goods from semiconductors to computers and related accessories.
- Iron and Steel: Brazil imports significant quantities of iron and steel products from the U.S.
- Wood and Articles of Wood: This category includes various wood products and pulp of wood.
Categories 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are things Brazil can easily get elsewhere.
However, disruptions are damaging to all parties. No one wins trade wars.
Copper Spikes to Record High After Trump’s 50 Percent Tariff Announcement
Earlier today, I noted Copper Spikes to Record High After Trump’s 50 Percent Tariff Announcement
How Many Jobs Will Trump Create?
Assuming the US produces all the copper it needs, the answer is hugely negative.
Perhaps mining industry employment doubles, if and when US mines get into production.
But that is dwarfed by users of copper, all paying a higher price.
Related Posts
February, 11, 2025: Trump’s Steel Tariffs Now Will Work as Good as the First Time
Q: How’s that? A: Very poorly.
March 13, 2025: The Amazing “Success” of Trump’s 2018 Aluminum Tariffs in One Picture
I hope you can take a bit of headline sarcasm because the true story follows.
May 31, 2025: Trump Will Double Steel and Aluminum Tariffs to 50 Percent
Tariff madness continues.
Just another impeachable crime committed by Donald I.
For a suggested answer to who pays the tariff, copper may give a clue. On the LME copper trades for about $US4.85 and on Comex it trades around $5.61.
If we are going to stick 50% tariffs on fascist evil countries like Brazil, then we should be doing the same with the fascist evil countries of the EU, Germany, France, the UK
I don’t think you know what that f word means.
At least Trump is good for gold, up 30% since January 🙂
I’d argue all items 1-6 can be sourced elswhere. Europe, the UK and China have healthy aerospace and space sectors….so does Russia, although sanctions might impact the ability of the latter to export
No soup for you!
100% of everyone knew that Trump would use the Oval Office for his personal grudges. Be honest with yourself. You voted for him knowing he would take his personal business to DC
No justification for his actions but what prez didn’t use the office for his grudges?
Right, Rando, as if Biden, James, Kamala, Schumer, Pelosi, Hillary, Comey, Brennan and MANY others didn’t abuse their power to bring their wrath down upon Trump.
Biden, Comey, Brennan, & James need to be held accountable for their illegal activities.
Sure. You just keep spouting that misinformation.
It’s getting weirder and weirder. But let’s see how the MAGA world likes their coffee prices hiked by 50 percent.
Then a coffee-producing country that signs with us will have the advantage over Brazil and take over the market.
Sounds like MAGA economics gone mad. Anyway, Brazil dominates the global coffee market.
When they are hiked just 38% they will do a victory celebration telling you that you were dead wrong, and will think they won bigly.
It’s a good thing that the US doesn’t meddle in other countries’ politics. Oh wait, only the US is allowed to meddle in other countries’ politics.
The Brazilian embassy returned the letter to the Department of State for its being insulting and devoid of facts.
It’s not “devoid of facts.” It’s counterfactual.
The pendulum have been swinging. Trump imposed tariffs on the BRICS who want to destroy the US dollar. Trump wants to return to Glass-Steagall fractional reserve banking to created wealth and prosperity in the US – not in China – for working people and for the middle class, instead of a few insiders billionaires and dirty politicians.
The pendulum have been swinging. Trump imposed tariffs on the BRICS who want to destroy the US dollar.
TruDat!
The pendulum is swinging from centrally controlled “reserves base money creation” to decentralized “fractional reserves banking”.
That’s why I support him.
It’s good to have a few like u on this blog.
The US is doing a fine job destroying the dollar all by itself. That other countries recognize this and flee a sinking ship is to be expected. Who can blame them?
Your reason is NOT what Trump said. He said he put 50% on Brazi because Bolsonaro is a fan of his and did what he did (tried to steal an election after he clearly lost). So your reason is purely fictional. If he’s telling you why he did something why don’t you believe him? Because you know foreign economic policy shouldn’t be based on personal grudges, but this is what he said he is doing.
Careful, the truth is hard for MAGA’s to imagine ~ much less accept.
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So, every American should pay higher prices because our sick, pedophile, president holds a grudge against a democratic nation that did not vote for his failure of a friend?
50% tariff against a nation we have a trade surplus to boot?
Thanks for the view into the clown show inside the Fox News silo!
LMAO ~
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So, by Trump’s own claims, impulsively meddling in partisan politics of a foreign country justifies his endangering our economy and empowering opponents geopolitically? How is that faintly America First? A random inebriated hobo on an L.A. sidewalk could make a wiser decision than that. Somebody is beyond his depth here.
Ever heard of Israel?
Trying to save Net.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-us-trump-netanyahu-trial-iran-e7cedec1c1a48101f83dc3fff0c2ac28
His personal grudges are far more important to him that what’s good for the USA, and you know that.
Interests and feelings of the king are part and parcel of America at this point for the MAGA crowd. They really can’t separate Trump from America. It is bizarre but true.
So America first means Trump first. How come Brazil dare oppress/persecute Trump’s ally. They deserve punishment. This is MAGA logic.
Being a personal, up close, lickspittle buddy of Trump means a permanent get out of jail free card (to the extent he will wreck a major trading relationship) and the reverse is true too.
Bank CEOs are about to tell us what they really think of Trump’s tariff chaosThe tone of big bank earnings calls will likely reveal more about the economy than any single earnings number
https://qz.com/bank-earnings-trump-tariffs-jamie-dimon-jpmorgan-chase-goldman-sachs
I’m so glad our elites have tax cuts, because that will afford them breathing room while, in this new melee, we peasant-consumers are revalued downward in his new mutually predatory global order.
This is at long last blatantly showing Trump’s arbitrary, fatefully geo-stupid choices. Huawei is licking its chops to install long-term digital infrastructure there, showing the new ground of geo-competition and dominance. Trump is still clever at turns, but he will not grow cognitively more adept: au contraire. I see this blinkered decision as perhaps an ultimate canary in a coal mine. If this is 5-dimensional chess, it is chess with the end state of shooting one’s foot off.
James Watt would be proud of him shooting his own foot off
The problem with Trump’s plan to tax copper is that the U.S. isn’t self-sufficient in copper
https://archive.is/20250709150853/https://fortune.com/2025/07/09/trump-copper-tariff/#selection-809.0-809.92
Even if it was, it would still be stupid. The less competing sources you have, the higher you will pay.
I don’t think this is even about Bolsonaro to be honest. Just the day before at the Brexit summit Lula was criticizing the US tariffs, and said that the world won’t take orders from an emperor. I bet this was the trigger.
All the BRICS and their groupies were hit by Trump’s tariffs. Oil supply is rising. Demand is falling. All the BRICS meaning ==> commodities prices were hit. The only “safe” heaven is the US bond market. For the banks, the safest place is parking in the Fed while collecting 4.5%. That’s why JP didn’t cut rates. If the BRICS will gang together against the US dollar they will be hit even more, by higher tariffs.
“If the BRICS will gang together against the US dollar they will be hit even more, by higher tariffs.”
We are in a financial war with the BRICS nations, most assuredly.
The no nonsense Trump hit the BRIBS with high tariffs. Turkey, a NATO member, tried to join, but was rejected by Putin. DXY is rising. Globalization out, producing what important to our national interest is in. It’s a systemic change. OPEC in Vienna decided to increase production by 550,000 B/day in Aug. Their budget deficit is growing.
“Globalization out, producing what important to our national interest is in. It’s a systemic change.”
Damn, Michael, you’re on fire. Keep it up!
donnie the wannabe king of the world is always about vengeance and insanity.
So, the USA already has a trade surplus with Brazil.
Brazil’s main exports to the US, which are now taxed at 50% are:
So if Trump does not back down as he usually does, expect this policy to be inflationary and recessionary.
Still waiting for the inflation.
Thank the TACO.
Where is the inflation you and others have been promising? Perhaps you are wrong.
For now, I agree with you, but I do believe that it’s more likely than not that tariff related inflation is coming. The only question is how fast & to what degree.
I can send you a whole stack of double digit price increases we have taken in our industry since liberation day Doug further depressing the housing market. All passed on to the consumer in the end.
And copper, it was an immediate 10% price increase overnight.
Another day. Another tariff. Have we reached the Golden Age yet?
Is the 50% on everything? Will it be on the oil we buy from Brazil? Does it stack on top of other tariffs? Will 50% more be added to the 50% tariffs on steel, aluminum and copper we get from Brazil?
I imagine the US companies that import items from Brazil for their businesses want to know more about these new tariffs.
What a show!
Lindsay Graham wants 500% tariffs on any country that buys anything from Russia – which is pretty much every one of them, including the US. We’d be tariffing ourselves. Think of all that tariff revenue.
miss graham needs the same residence as trump a mental hospital.
Trump’s primary goal as I understand it is to create the economic conditions that forces most of what we import in terms of strategic goods to be manufactured here in the US or to be friendly shored away from China and other countries who are hostile towards the USA.
Certainly, there are a few other things he’s trying to do like increase revenue, but then he’s okay with spending that via tax cuts. Let’s set those additional goals aside.
In the other thread about Trump’s tariff letters, I asked twice:
AGAIN, FOR THE THIRD TIME, GIVE US YOUR PLAN THAT ACHIEVES WHAT I’M SAYING IS TRUMP’S PRIMARY GOAL HERE.
From the other thread, you spoke about competitive advantage & not being concerned about inflation. Okay. That’s fine. You’re entitled to having your own priorities. No worries.
But, again, put yourself in Trump’s shoes & let us know how you’d achieve his primary goal, whether or not you think it’s a worthwhile goal.
Thanks!
I don’t have any manufactures we do business with that are moving production back to the US. They are simply passing the increases on.
And even domestic manufacturing is not immune from the tariffs IE the copper tariff. The domestic fitting and tubing producers will pass on increases, they can’t avoid buying a portion of their raw cathode needs from South America.
Main problem is that Trump is just not fit for such grand plan and 15D chess play.
If Trump indeed seek this grand plan then proper way of doing it would be to work with congress, have proper legislation, seek bipartisan support and make some framework.
What Trump is doing is acting like a king, treating everybody like idiot. His constant excuse to issue some executive order in name of national security is getting old. And all that ends in court as it should. Even Republican congressmen are not sure what comes next, so do we have a grand plan or he just makes it as we go.
But he is destroying country this way.
When Queen Kamala or whoever else comes next you might see same executive order telling that all guns to be confiscated based on national security problem. Or maybe she will start fast track to US citizenship as we have national security problem due to shortage of janitors.
I hope you will cheer those action same way you cheer Trump here as he will be a perfect excuse for Dems to use.
Again all Trump does is issuing those executive order which everybody knows is temporary and most likely removed by next president or voided in court (because it is not congress approved law). So what is a point of even doing anything, just wait him out.
Trump is total failure as he was in 1st term. He currently has majority support in both congress and senate and also majority in supreme court. Instead of using this to make something really great he is just bringing chaos to put him in spotlight (completely expected from narcissist) with this TACO in /TACO out flops.
If you think Trump will achieve this goal then ask yourself if we have this promised wall with Mexico and if Mexico indeed paid for it?
Trump is doing everything he can to redirect Brazil’s trades to China LOL
China has replaced the US as Brazil’s main trading partner back in 2009. Trump is doing everything he can to make their partnership even stronger.
This week Brazil and China signed a contract for the construction of a railway connecting Brazilian ports on the Atlantic to the new Peruvian port on the Pacific.
Woo hoo! We’re not taking Brazil’s bullshit anymore! The tariffs will continue until we have trade parity with Brazil!
Like with Britain, we have a trade surplus with Brazil. Is that what Trump wants to eliminate?
I know. That was in the article. I was joking. The /s was implied.
well I for one am doing my best to reduce your trade surplus with us
The beatings will stop when morale improves. Lol
It’d almosr make sense if it were in response to Brazil’s strong growth of taking agricultural export markets from the US, but no, it’s in defense of another con man
If we don’t limit the import of beef, it will continue to be underpriced.
Bolsonaro was indicted for conspiring to throw a coup. It’s on tape and on paper. His military officers have already been tried and condemned. The US have always loved caudillos, especially those ready to sell out to the US.
Shhh that makes Zelensky nervous.
Brilliant! Stock market is sure to explode to all time highs again. Regardless your love or hate for Trump, one thing is for sure, The Stock Market Bulls LOVE trump and that’s all that really matters.
The CRIMINAL does CRIMINAL activity screwing the US for HIS PIEVES. PATHETIC.
Trump seems to be so vindictive as his character negatively strengthens in his old age.
47 making 45 seem chill.