The Brazilian senator and far-right presidential pre-candidate, Flávio Bolsonaro, has sent a document to the United States Government in which he offers the future Donald Trump Administration a series of commercial benefits, including a tax reduction for credit card companies and the guarantee that the Pix payment system will not connect with other "non-Western" cross-border payment systems.
The office of the son of former President Jair Bolsonaro has sent a dossier to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in which it presents Pix, created by the Central Bank of Brazil, as one of the great achievements of his father's term, according to the Brazilian newspaper 'Folha'.
At the same time, it refutes the Trump Administration's thesis that Pix generates a conflict of interest, by comparing it with the instant payment tool FedNow of the U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed), and denies that it poses a threat to the financial system of the United States.
In this context, Flávio Bolsonaro proposes a "legislative commitment" to prevent Pix from integrating with "non-Western" platforms, in clear allusion to China. Although Pix currently does not allow international transfers, the text does not go into detail about the specific mechanism by which the connection with foreign systems would be vetoed.
The document also proposes to alleviate the "regulatory and fiscal burden" borne by credit cards, a sector dominated by the American companies Visa and Mastercard, considering that such pressure "hinders competition rather than fostering it." "Reducing this burden (...) would expand consumer choices, decrease the cost of voluntary exchanges, and support economic growth," the document states.
The White House has repeatedly expressed its displeasure with Pix, considering that it disproportionately harms U.S. financial and technological companies such as Visa and Apple, an argument that served as the basis for the commercial investigation opened by Washington against Brazil.
As a result of the USTR's investigations, the Department of Commerce proposed to apply an additional surcharge of 25% to the tariffs of certain Brazilian products, in retaliation for the alleged obstacles that the Executive of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva imposes on trade, in addition to issues such as illegal deforestation, piracy, or corruption.
The dossier sent by Flávio Bolsonaro's office also refers to this possible increase in tariffs and maintains that imposing the new tax would be a strategic error that would grant a "political victory" to President Lula, whom the far-right senator aspires to challenge for the head of state position in this year's elections. Therefore, he asks the White House to delay any decision on the so-called 'tariff hike' at least until after the elections.
Criticism of Mercosur and alignment with Milei's agenda
In another point of the document, the far-right senator proposes an "energetic pursuit" of new agreements that increase trade and investment between Brazil and the United States, even if it implies altering the current regional framework.
In this regard, he suggests that Brazil "free itself from the shackles" of Mercosur, questioning the limitations that the bloc imposes on bilateral negotiations with third countries. With this, Flávio Bolsonaro revives a strategy already defended by the Argentine president, Javier Milei, and positions himself as the heir to the critical discourse of his father, Jair Bolsonaro, who during his term (2019-2023) also promoted an agenda contrary to the traditional orientation of the regional alliance.
Lula accuses the Bolsonaros of "treason to the homeland"
The pre-candidate's proposals have provoked a harsh reaction from President Lula, who has described it as "unacceptable that the Bolsonaro family, with its submission to foreign interests, seeks to subject Brazil to the interests of the United States," something that, as he has stressed, "is evident in the document sent today by one of its members to the US government," without explicitly mentioning Flávio.
In a message disseminated on social media, the leftist leader has denounced that "advocating for the end of Mercosur, the most important economic bloc in Latin America, which has just signed a historic agreement with the European Union, is another attack on the interests of the Brazilian people."
"As if that were not enough, they intend to hand over Pix to foreign interests. They will not succeed. Pix is a Brazilian achievement and we will not abandon it," Lula added, in defense of the instant payment system.
The part of the document that asks to postpone the US tariff increase until after the Brazilian elections has been the element that has most outraged the president, who has described that request as "another act of treason to the homeland."
"There has never been nor is there any justification for tariff increases, neither now nor in the future," he insisted, before recalling that "the most absurd thing is to know that all this was driven by the Bolsonaro family itself, which publicly defended the increase in tariffs on Brazilian products."
Lula had already accused in early June the sons of Jair Bolsonaro of being behind Washington's intention to impose new tariffs of 25% on Brazilian exports, calling them "traitors to the homeland" at the time.
The president was responding to the trip that Eduardo and Flávio Bolsonaro made at the end of May to the United States, where they visited the White House and asked Trump for the two main criminal groups in the country, the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and the Comando Vermelho, to be designated as terrorist organizations, something that was confirmed shortly after.