Does Brazil have room to negotiate Trump's tariffs?

They made important concessions in exchange for more stability in their trade relationship with the Americans, but they still face uncertainties, such as the recent announcement of tariffs to combat forced labor. Canada, which signed a broad trade agreement with Trump's US in 2025, was also the target this month of a new tariff by the White House, leading Canadians to accuse Washington of violating the treaty. Still, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he intends to "intensify" trade negotiations with Trump. With all this at stake, should Brazil follow the same path? The nature of tariffs For professor Daniel Vargas, from FGV Direito Rio, the first step is to establish the differences in negotiations with the United States during President Donald Trump's second term. According to him, the negotiations now also involve aspects relating to American influence in the region and the political relationship between the two countries. "This is not just a negotiating dialogue in the strict sense. It is a much deeper dispute that involves both economic and political issues, but above all geopolitical issues that have become a priority for the United States", says Vargas. He explains that the political nature of the measure would be the construction of an ideological affinity between the two countries through a possible impact on the Brazilian elections. The second would be the use of tariffs to disincentivize countries from maintaining a close trade relationship with China. “It is not a tariff whose calculation carries with it the hope of having an economic return tomorrow. It is a tariff whose calculation has the expectation of affirming American authority and its geopolitical influence over the region”, he says. The position is corroborated by professor of international relations at Berea College Carlos Gustavo Poggio. "It is difficult to negotiate because it is not a technical issue. The opening of the investigation in Brazil was political. It began when Trump sent a letter talking about Jair Bolsonaro, about the Federal Supreme Court", explains Poggio, in reference to the first round of tariffs announced by the American government in July 2025. The investigation opened on that occasion aimed to respond to economic measures from countries that restricted American trade and was closed with the recent announcement of 25% taxation on Brazilian products. For Poggio, however, the application of tariffs would be more anchored in an ideological vision of the Trump administration, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, than a long-term strategy that aims to remove Chinese influence from strategic trading partners. "The Trump administration doesn't think that way because there is no strategy, there are impulses and emotion. It's not something coherent," he says. Rubio, who is the son of Cubans, is considered a member of the most ideological wing of the American government and has played a central role in the Trump administration's relationship with Latin American countries. Was there an attempt to negotiate? Brazil did not abstain from negotiating with the United States, according to professor Daniel Vargas, but the Brazilian government's position has not taken into account the political components of the measure. "I think the government is trying to negotiate, but in a very narrow way, more than any other negotiation underway or that has taken place between other countries and the United States. Negotiations with Europe also involved a set of value components", he states. Gustavo Blum, who is a geopolitical analyst and guest researcher at the Geneva Graduate Institute, argues that the country tried to negotiate with the United States, but the process did not advance due to the “maximalist” logic of the Trump administration, where there is little or no room for concessions. “Brazil did not open up completely and completely, the government sought to find solutions without harming strategic sectors of the Brazilian economy”, he states. Blum argues that the tariff occurs in a context in which the United States seeks to increase its influence in Latin America, but questions the effectiveness of the measure. “There is a logic to this process, but it is guided by inconstancy”, he states. He mentions that the recent phone call between Lula and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, where a possible agreement between Mercosur and China was discussed, shows how tariffs can produce the opposite effect to that sought by the Americans. Professor Carlos Poggio highlights that it is not possible to make a direct comparison between the United States' other bilateral negotiations and a possible agreement with Brazil, as they involved countries with a much more important geopolitical and economic relationship with the Americans. “Furthermore, in the case of negotiations with Europe and Japan, for example,