Trump tariffs goods from Brazil at 50%, citing ‘witch hunt’ trial against country’s former president

WASHINGTON AP President Donald Trump singled out Brazil for import taxes of on Wednesday for its rehabilitation of its former president Jair Bolsonaro showing that personal grudges rather than simple economics are a driving force in the U S leader s use of tariffs Trump avoided his standard form letter with Brazil specifically tying his tariffs to the trial of Bolsonaro who is charged with trying to overturn his electoral contest loss Trump has described Bolsonaro as a friend and hosted the former Brazilian president at his Mar-a-Lago resort when both were in power in This Trial should not be taking place Trump wrote in the letter posted on Truth Social It is a Witch Hunt that should end PROMPTLY There is a sense of kinship as Trump was indicted in for his efforts to overturn the results of the U S presidential poll The U S president addressed his tariff letter to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who bested Bolsonaro in Bolsonaro testified before the country s Supreme Court in June over the alleged plot to remain in power after his electoral contest loss Judges will hear from other defendants in the coming months A decision could come as early as September legal analysts say Bolsonaro has already been barred from from running for office until by the country s electoral administration Brazil s vice president Geraldo Alckmin reported he sees no reason for the U S to hike tariffs on the South American nation I think he has been misinformed he reported President Lula was jailed for almost two years No one questioned the judiciary No one questioned what the country had done This is a matter for our judiciary branch For Trump the tariffs are personal Trump also objected to Brazil s Supreme Court fining of social media companies saying the temporary blocking last year amounted to SECRET and UNLAWFUL Censorship Orders Trump noted he is launching an examination as a aftermath under Section of the Pact Act of which applies to countries with exchange practices that are deemed unfair to U S companies Among the companies the Supreme Court fined was X which was not mentioned specifically in Trump s letter X is owned by Elon Musk Trump s multibillionaire backer in the voting whose time leading Trump s Department of Cabinet Efficiency in recent months ended and led to a masses feud over the U S president s deficit-increasing budget plan Trump also owns a social media company Truth Social Brazilian lawmakers allied with President Lula blamed Bolsonaro and two of his sons congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro and Sen Fl vio Bolsonaro for Trump s action Every justification to retaliate against Brazil is political as if Bolsonaro was politically persecuted Sen Lindbergh Farias the whip of Lula s Workers Party in the Senate stated on social media The Bolsonaros must be very happy to harm Brazil our business sector and our jobs The Brazil letter was a reminder that politics and personal relations with Trump matter just as much as any economic fundamentals And while Trump has commented the high tariff rates he s setting are based on commerce imbalances it was unclear by his Wednesday actions how the countries being targeted would help to reindustrialize America The tariffs starting Aug would be a dramatic increase from the rate that Trump levied on Brazil as part of his April Liberation Day announcement In addition to oil Brazil sells orange juice coffee iron and steel to the U S among other products The U S ran a billion commerce surplus with Brazil last year according to the Census Bureau Trump initially declared his broad tariffs by declaring an economic urgency arguing under a law that the U S was at liability because of persistent exchange imbalances But that rationale becomes problematic in this particular situation as Trump is linking his tariffs to the Bolsonaro trial and the U S exports more to Brazil than it imports Trump also targeted smaller arrangement partners Trump also sent letters Wednesday to the leaders of seven other nations None of them the Philippines Brunei Moldova Algeria Libya Iraq and Sri Lanka is a major industrial rival to the United States The majority economic analyses say the tariffs will worsen inflationary pressures and subtract from economic development but Trump has used the taxes as a way to assert the diplomatic and financial power of the U S on both rivals and allies His administration is promising that the taxes on imports will lower agreement imbalances offset selected of the cost of the tax cuts he signed into law on Friday and cause factory jobs to return to the United States Trump during a White House meeting with African leaders talked up exchange as a diplomatic tool Bargain he commented seems to be a foundation for him to settle disputes between India and Pakistan as well as Kosovo and Serbia You guys are going to fight we re not going to contract Trump reported And we seem to be quite prosperous in doing that Trump stated the tariff rates in his letters were based on common sense and bargain imbalances even though the Brazil letter indicated otherwise Trump suggested he had not thought of penalizing the countries whose leaders were meeting with him in the Oval Office Liberia Senegal Gabon Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau as these are friends of mine now Countries are not complaining about the rates outlined in his letters he explained even though those tariffs have been generally close to the ones declared April that rattled financial markets The S P stock index rose Wednesday We really haven t had too multiple complaints because I m keeping them at a very low number very conservative as you would say Trump commented Tariff uncertainty returns with Trump s letters Leaders for the European Union a major pact partner and source of Trump s ire on business declared Tuesday that they are not expecting to receive a letter from Trump listing tariff rates The Republican president started the process of announcing tariff rates on Monday by hitting two major U S trading partners Japan and South Korea with import taxes of According to Trump s Wednesday letters imports from Libya Iraq Algeria and Sri Lanka would be taxed at those from Moldova and Brunei at and those from the Philippines at The tariffs would start Aug The Census Bureau published that last year the U S ran a exchange imbalance on goods of billion with Algeria billion with Iraq million with Libya billion with the Philippines billion with Sri Lanka million with Brunei and million with Moldova The imbalance represents the difference between what the U S exported to those countries and what it imported Taken together the transaction imbalances with those seven countries are essentially a rounding error in a U S business activity with a gross domestic product of trillion The letters were posted on Truth Social after the expiration of a -day negotiating period with a baseline levy of Trump is giving countries more time to negotiate with his Aug deadline but he has insisted there will be no extensions for the countries that receive letters The president threatened additional tariffs on any country that attempts to retaliate Associated Press writers Mauricio Savarese in Rio de Janeiro David McHugh in Frankfurt Germany and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia contributed to this statement Source