The executives of Brazil and the United States have decided to reactivate their contacts in commercial matters through a virtual meeting that will be held next Monday, the 31st, by the Brazilian Minister of Development, Industry, Commerce and Services, Márcio Elias Rosa, and the United States Trade Representative (USTR, for its acronym in English), Jamieson Greer.
According to the agency Brasil and the newspaper "Folha", this conversation was driven by Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Donald Trump, who had a phone call last Friday in which they agreed to resume dialogue between the two countries.
During that communication, the Brazilian leader conveyed that the tariffs negatively affect both Brazil and the United States and reiterated that, from the perspective of the Brazilian government, the reasons put forward by the White House to impose the new levies have no basis, according to the agency Brasil.
This new contact could serve to reopen negotiations between Washington and Brasília, which were stalled after the USTR's office applied a 25% surcharge on various products from Brazil in July, after nearly a year of investigations.
Among the arguments used was an alleged lack of "good faith" from Brasília in the negotiating process with Washington; the defense by Brazilian authorities of the electronic payment system Pix, which, according to the White House, "unfairly" harms American suppliers, as well as a supposed punishment "to American technology companies for refusing to censor political speech," referring to the sanction imposed on the social network X, owned by South African businessman Elon Musk, for not complying with the order to remove accounts of those investigated for spreading messages considered undemocratic.
These tariffs were added to those established by the White House against numerous countries and against the European Union for, according to the Trump Administration, not having effective mechanisms to prevent the entry of products made with forced labor.