RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian Vice President Geraldo Alckmin said Saturday that Brazilian exported goods to the U.S. including coffee, beef and tropical fruits would still be tariffed 40 percent, despite President Donald Trump’s decision to remove some import taxes.
In a dramatic move on Friday, Trump scrapped levies announced in April on what he called ‘Liberation Day’ in hopes of encouraging domestic production and lifting the U.S. economy. Brazil at the time was hit with a 10 percent tariff.
But in July, Trump imposed a further 40 percent tariff, citing — among other reasons — the trial of his ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro, which he called a “witch hunt.” Proceedings went ahead regardless and in September Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison for attempting a coup.
Alckmin said some products, such as orange juice, would now have a zero tariff as they were not targeted by the additional 40 percent. But that extra tariff remains in place on products including coffee, beef and tropical fruits, such as mangos and pineapples.
While Brazil’s vice president welcomed Trump’s latest decision, which he called “positive” and a “step in the right direction,” he said there remained a “distortion that needs to be corrected.”
“Everyone got 10 percent less, but in Brazil’s case, which had 50 percent, we ended up with 40 percent, which is very high,” Alckmin told journalists in the capital Brasilia.
Alckmin said that Friday’s decision means that 26 percent of Brazilian goods are now entering the U.S. without additional tariffs. That’s up from 23 percent.
Trump’s July decision, which was overtly political as Brazil has a trade deficit with the United States, led to the worst U.S.-Brazil relations in history.
Those relations have since improved, and in October Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Trump met in Malaysia.
“President Lula’s conversation with President Donald Trump was important in terms of dialogue and negotiation,” Alckmin said on Saturday.
After that encounter, Lula said he was confident the two countries would soon reach a trade deal.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Brazil’s Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira met for 50 minutes this week to further the conversation.
The Trump administration has insisted that its tariffs helped fill government coffers and weren’t a major factor in higher prices at grocery stores around the country. But Democrats were quick to paint Friday’s move as an acknowledgment that Trump’s policies were hurting American pocketbooks.
Record-high beef prices have been a particular concern, and Trump had said he intended to take action to try and lower them. Trump’s tariffs on Brazil, a major beef exporter, had been a factor.
Back in Brazil, the Brazilian Association of the Coffee Industry said it would continue to monitor the situation.
“(We) will keep working to ensure legal certainty, competitiveness, and predictability for the Brazilian coffee industry,” the group’s president, Pavel Cardoso, said in a statement.
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