On ninth of July 2025, the President of the USA, Donald Trump, despatched a letter to the Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva speaking that the US will impose a 50% tariff over Brazilian imports beginning August 1st. The letter was launched in Trump’s social media platform, Fact Social, and got here as a relative shock to the Brazilian authorities. Trump’s earlier tariffs, launched in April this yr in what he referred to as “Liberation Day” and subsequently paused, predicted Brazil’s tariffs could be of 10%. This would depart the nation on the decrease finish of commerce restrictions alongside different states in relation to whom the US had a commerce surplus, corresponding to Javier Milei’s Argentina. In 2024, the US reported a surplus in relation to Brazil of $7.4bn in 2024, a 33% enhance since 2023.
Trump’s letter to Brazil reeked of interventionism. In contrast to comparable letters despatched to different states’ informing them of upper tariff charges this week that adopted a boiler-plate sample, his motivations for imposing tariffs on Brazil forefronted two points: placing an finish to the prosecution of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, and halting judicial and legislative efforts aimed toward making certain social media firms, corresponding to Trump’s “Fact Social” and Elon Musk’s “X/Twitter”, adjust to Brazilian regulation. For sure these tariffs will not be about redressing any form of commerce dispute — the purpose is to weaponize commerce to perform unrelated coverage targets.
The primary paragraph of Trump’s letter already mentions Bolsonaro’s remedy by the Brazilian authorities, labelling it “a global shame”, and his trial a “Witch Hunt” (sic.), that ought to “finish instantly”. Bolsonaro is presently dealing with legal proceedings for orchestrating an tried coup that concerned plans to assassinate President Lula and different authorities officers on the eighth of January 2023. The letter then mentions “Brazil’s insidious assaults on Free Elections” (sic.), and alleges violations of “the basic Free Speech Rights of People” (sic.) by the Brazilian Supreme Court docket, that he defends issued “a whole bunch of SECRET and UNLAWFUL Censorship Orders” (sic.) towards U.S.-owned social media conglomerates. It additionally alleges “Brazil’s continued assaults on the Digital Commerce actions of American Firms” as a cause for initiating a “Part 301 investigation” towards Brazil. These excerpts doubtless confer with the Brazilian Supreme Court docket’s fines and suspension of Twitter/X for not complying with judicial orders associated to legal investigations of the 2023 tried coup, latest selections holding platforms accountable for dangerous content material posted by customers, and impending laws that can regulate social media firms.
What the letter doesn’t point out, however that’s prone to even be motivating Trump’s crackdown on Brazil, was the seventeenth BRICS Summit held in Brazil between the sixth and seventh of July. The group now contains six further members Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Ethiopia, and Indonesia, becoming a member of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, that search to “[demonstrate] that the World South is now not a secondary participant”. One of many biggest threats to the US within the BRICS agenda is a proposition for options to the greenback as the worldwide forex, and different insurance policies that Trump labelled “anti-American”.
It’s plain to see that the tariffs imposed by Trump on Brazil and others are illegal below worldwide commerce regulation, as identified on this Weblog by Nicolas Lamp. Within the specific case of Brazil, nevertheless, I argue the measures additionally represent a breach of the rule of non-intervention, configuring a particular sort of intervention: “coercion-as-extortion”. The sub-genre of the breach of non-intervention, within the interpretation of Marko Milanovic (see right here and, in its full glory, right here; extra interpretations of the rule of non-intervention that assist the “extortion mannequin” right here), would require two or three components:
“In coercion-as-extortion, the coercing state performs a minimum of two, and generally three, distinct actions. First, it makes a requirement of the sufferer state, and this demand pertains to issues throughout the sufferer state’s reserved area, asking that state to have interaction or not have interaction in sure conduct. Second, it threatens the sufferer state with hurt (e.g., drive, financial sanctions, or cyber operations—the hurt itself needn’t have any connection to the reserved area, i.e., might cope with a completely unrelated space) if the demand just isn’t met. It’s exactly the specter of hurt and its hyperlink with the demand that’s the essence of coercion: “do what we are saying, or else.” By itself a requirement can by no means be coercive as such. Third, if the demand just isn’t met, the coercing state might implement the threatened hurt with a view to induce the coerced state to conform.” (p. 626, footnotes omitted, emphasis added)
The letter issued by Trump suits the mannequin proposed by Marko precisely. The primary requirement, the demand of the sufferer state inside Brazil’s reserved area, is Trump’s demand for (1) the tip of Bolsonaro’s prosecution (“The trial shouldn’t be happening”) and (2) the tip of the present makes an attempt to control, by the judiciary specifically, of social media platforms (“the Brazilian Supreme Court docket […] has issued a whole bunch of […] Censorship Orders to U.S. Social Media platforms, threatening them with Thousands and thousands of {Dollars} in Fines and Eviction from the Brazilian Social Media market” (sic.). The reserved area, or area reservé of states, was outlined by the Worldwide Court docket of Justice in Nicaragua as “issues by which every State is permitted, by the precept of State sovereignty, to resolve freely” (para. 205). The definition is broad, however one can hardly consider a extra blatant instance of reserved area than the precise of a state’s judiciary to function freely, if that operation just isn’t in contravention to its obligations below worldwide regulation. On this specific case, each calls for goal the Brazilian judiciary, making an attempt to affect the way it applies home laws in legal and civil proceedings. Its judiciary is each entitled to prosecute these accountable for an tried coup, and to control the conduct of tech firms. Neither case represents a breach of Brazil’s worldwide obligations that might take away its actions from its reserved area.
The second requirement is the specter of hurt in the direction of the sufferer state. The risk right here is evident: “[…] we are going to cost Brazil a Tariff of fifty% on any and all Brazilian merchandise despatched into the USA, aside from all Sectoral Tariffs” (sic.). There may be a further risk of hurt, in case of retaliation by Brazil: “If for any cause you resolve to lift your Tariffs, then, no matter quantity you select to lift them by, will likely be added onto the 50% that we cost”. Though, as Marko suggests, the requirement is the specter of hurt, and never the incidence of hurt itself in apply, consultants have projected that the tariffs imposed by Trump would significantly hurt the Brazilian economic system, because the US is its third largest buying and selling companion. These threats would additionally match into the third requirement of coercion-as-extortion, that if the demand just isn’t met (the tip of Bolsonaro’s trial and the de-regulation of social media firms), the US will implement the threatened hurt (cost the aforementioned tariffs), with a view to oblige Brazil to conform. The “risk of hurt” requirement differentiates Trump’s makes an attempt to coerce the Brazilian judiciary via the implementation of tariffs from his aggressive, however in a roundabout way threatening, criticism of Israel’s prosecution of Benjamin Netanyahu for corruption. In that case, there may be an try and affect Israel’s reserved area, however no direct coercion because it manifests within the Brazilian case.
As Marko explains, these coercive measures don’t essentially need to work for there to be a breach of worldwide regulation. On this case, in truth, they’re having the alternative of the specified impact. President Lula vehemently and publically rebuffed Trump’s risk, and a wave of anti-imperialist sentiment has moved the Brazilian inhabitants, producing not solely uproar on social media, however a substantial reputation increase for the present authorities. That is particularly welcome by Lula’s base, as his authorities’s approval charges have been hitting file lows, after a collection of vital financial measures proposed by the Minister of the Financial system have been just lately crushed in Congress. Earlier within the week in a prolonged letter, the President of the Brazilian Supreme Court docket, Luis Roberto Barroso, affirmed Bolsonaro’s trial will likely be undertaken with judicial independence and respect to the rule of regulation. The U.S.’s tariffs are additionally negatively affecting Bolsonaro’s reputation. His son Eduardo, presently self-exiled within the U.S. lobbying for intervention on behalf of his father, is seen by some as accountable for Trump’s tariffs towards Brazil, and the household are being labelled “traitors” and “false patriots”. Bolsonaro made a pronouncement on the seventeenth of July, 2025 providing to talk to Trump on behalf of Lula, if he’s given again his passport presently withheld whereas his legal trial is pending. This led to him being having his freedom restricted within the morning of the 18th of July by Supreme Court docket Decide Alexandre de Moraes, who argued Bolsonaro’s assertion was an affront to nationwide sovereignty, because it conditioned the lifting of the tariffs to his amnesty from prosecution.
Lula made a TV pronouncement on the night of the seventeenth of July on the “tarifaço”, because the Trump tariffs have been baptized by Brazilian media, by which he referred to as the measures “unacceptable blackmail” and a “grave assault on Brazilian sovereignty”. He additionally affirmed Brazil will convey the matter to the WTO, and use Brazil’s new “Reciprocity Regulation”, that regulates the nation’s proper to protect nationwide financial pursuits in circumstances of unfair worldwide remedy on commerce issues, to retaliate towards the U.S.. Lula additionally affirmed “large tech firms” could be taxed in Brazil, though the particular particulars of how this can occur stay unclear.
Trump’s letter clearly fulfils the necessities of “coercion-as-extortion” sort of illegal intervention in Brazil’s inside affairs. (1) It makes calls for on Brazil on an space of its reserved area, particularly the actions of the judiciary and its financial coverage that aren’t in breach of Brazil’s worldwide obligations, (2) threatening Brazil with hurt within the type of tariffs on Brazilian items, and (3) probably inflicting nice hurt to the Brazilian economic system. The scenario is shortly creating, however Lula’s has now instantly rebuffed Trump’s threats, and acknowledged them as an assault on Brazil’s sovereignty. Because the scenario continues to unfold, it is going to be fascinating to see the position the breach of the precept of non-intervention may have on official positions by each governments. On the worldwide financial regulation entrance, we will additionally observe whether or not Brazil’s try and convey the problem earlier than the WTO will enable for the establishment’s reimagined use regardless of the paralysis of the Appellate Physique, and whether or not the scenario will generate momentum for the solidification of BRICS and different types of financial governance.
