Lula da Silva on Trump’s tariffs against Brazil: ‘My intuition says he doesn’t want to talk. And I won’t humiliate myself’
The Brazilian president also believes Jair Bolsonaro should be tried for inciting the US to use trade as a weapon over the latter’s trial for plotting to overturn the 2022 election
As U.S. tariffs on Brazilian goods reached 50% on Wednesday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called Trump “authoritarian” and accused him of creating problems in a relationship where none existed. He also said he has no plans to call the U.S. president to negotiate because “my intuition says he doesn’t want to talk. And I won’t humiliate myself.”
“A president cannot humiliate himself for another president. I respect everyone and I demand respect for myself,” the Brazilian leader told Reuters.
The Brazilian also had words for former president Jair Bolsonaro, whom he accused, along with his son Eduardo, of inciting the White House sanctions against his government. “There is no precedent in history for a president and his son, a congressman, to turn the president of the United States against Brazil. They should be judged for that,” he said.
The relationship between the United States and Brazil is going through an unprecedented crisis. As part of his trade war against the rest of the world, Trump specifically targeted Latin America’s largest economy with the highest tariff imposed on any other country. The Republican’s arguments were not economic, but political. Trump believes his friend Bolsonaro, on trial for allegedly attempting to overthrow Lula in January 2023, is the victim of a judicial “witch hunt” and has used the tariff hike as a form of retaliation. In recent months, he openly called for the trial of Bolsonaro to be halted. The campaign against Brazil included a direct attack on the judge in charge of the case, Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, whom the U.S. State Department punished with a law designed to target human rights violators and dictators.
Brazilian negotiators hit a wall in their attempt to open a door in Washington. This week, they celebrated having managed to at least exclude some 700 products from the tariff hike, some as important as oil, aircraft, and pulp. On Tuesday, Economy Minister Fernando Haddad said they were even willing to offer critical minerals and rare earths in exchange for a tariff reduction. However, there was no communication between Lula and Trump, and none appears likely to happen anytime soon.
During an interview with a Brazilian media outlet, reporters asked him, ‘Are you going to talk to him?’ ‘Not now,’ he replied. I mean, our best negotiators are trying to talk to their negotiators. I don’t have to call President Trump because in the letters he sent, he never talks about negotiations. He talks about new threats,” he complained.
Trump’s retaliation has fueled nationalist sentiment in Brazil. “This is not a minor intervention,” Lula said. “It’s the president of the United States who believes he can dictate the rules over a sovereign country like Brazil. It’s unacceptable that the United States, or any other country, large or small, should offer an unsolicited opinion on our sovereignty. What we’re not finding is dialogue. When you want to talk, I’ll talk.”
The Brazilian government is planning a state aid plan for companies affected by the tariffs. Lula clarified that, for now, this will be the only response to the United States. “I’m doing all this when I could announce a tax on American products. I won’t do it because I don’t want to behave like President Trump. I want to show that when one doesn’t want to fight, two don’t fight. And I don’t want to fight with the United States.”
Bolsonaro trial
Last Monday, Judge Moraes ordered Bolsonaro under house arrest for violating the restrictions imposed on him on July 18, when he was fitted with an electronic anklet. The conditions included not using social media, not even through other people. Lula himself avoided the topic when asked during an official event. His attitude changed this Wednesday, with a response that characterized Trump as an “authoritarian” and Bolsonaro and his family as “traitors to the country” for promoting Trump’s punishment.
From his self-imposed exile in the United States, Eduardo Bolsonaro continues to lobby Trump to move forward with the case against his father. “His son should be subjected to another process and condemned as a traitor to the country. That’s what he is. A federal congressman, the son of a former president, travels to the United States with the mission of lying and turning the U.S. government against Brazil. These people know they will be tried, and they know they can be convicted,” he said.
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