WASHINGTON — Products imported to the U.S. from Brazil — including almost a third of the supply relied on every day by America’s coffee drinkers — are subject to a 50% tariff beginning Friday, not because of Brazil’s trade policies, but because of President Donald Trump’s relationship with the country’s former strongman president Jair Bolsonaro, and because of the actions of one of the justices of Brazil’s supreme court.
Trump typically justifies his tariffs by pointing to the U.S. trade deficit and saying that other nations are taking advantage of the United States. Many economists disagree with his view, but it doesn’t matter in this instance: The U.S. actually has a trade surplus with Brazil of hundreds of billions of dollars over more than a decade, not a deficit.
Still, on Friday, Trump imposed a total 50% tariff on certain products imported from Brazil, the highest rate of any country in the world.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration also slapped the supreme court justice, Alexandre de Moraes, with tough sanctions under the Magnitsky Act, a law originally passed by Congress with the intent of punishing Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies after the death in prison of Sergei Magnitsky, who had been investigating corruption in Russia. In a post on X, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the sanctions had been imposed “for serious human rights abuses.”
What are the alleged human rights abuses? De Moraes has been overseeing the case against Bolsonaro, who is charged along with some 30 others — including the former commander of Brazil’s navy, the former defense minister and the former intelligence chief — with trying to stage a coup to prevent the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from taking office after he defeated Bolsonaro in a 2022 election.
Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered Bolsonaro to wear an ankle monitor and not go on social media, call foreign leaders or leave the country pending his trial. Three Brazilian officials noted to NBC News that the penalty was imposed after one of his sons, Eduardo Bolsonaro, a Brazilian congressman visiting the U.S., worked to enlist Steve Bannon and other MAGA allies to get Trump’s attention and advocate to put pressure on Brazil over his father’s case.
De Moraes also ordered a ban in Brazil of the social media platform X, which is owned by sometime Trump ally Elon Musk, that lasted for more than a month last year after Musk and X refused to appoint a legal representative for their business in the country or to comply with court orders and requests to remove certain accounts and posts associated with election misinformation.
And Trump’s own social media company, Trump Media, has sued de Moraes over a suspension order he issued to the video hosting company Rumble, which Trump Media uses for its Truth Social platform.
“The way that Brazil has treated former President Bolsonaro, a Highly Respected Leader throughout the World during his Term, including by the United States, is an international disgrace. This Trial should not be taking place. It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!” Trump said in a letter that he sent to Brazil’s president, who is widely known as Lula, and posted to Truth Social on July 9.
Trump’s letter went on to tie Bolsonaro’s prosecution and de Moraes’ social media rulings to the tariffs he’d later impose: “Due in part to Brazil’s insidious attacks on Free Elections, and the fundamental Free Speech Rights of Americans (as lately illustrated by the Brazilian Supreme Court, which has issued hundreds of SECRET and UNLAWFUL Censorship Orders to U.S. Social Media platforms, threatening them with Millions of Dollars in Fines and Eviction from the Brazilian Social Media market), starting on August 1, 2025, we will charge Brazil a Tariff of 50% on any and all Brazilian products sent into the United States.”
Brazil, the world’s fourth largest democracy, exports popular commodities like coffee, beef, oranges, aircraft, oil, iron and steel to the U.S. Trump’s executive order excluded some products, including oranges, oil and fertilizers, but not coffee or beef.
Trump’s actions against Brazil have brought the country’s opposing political sides together to some extent.
A delegation including Bolsonaro supporters and a former opposition Cabinet member from Brazil’s foreign relations and defense committee met in Washington this week with Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis to try to iron out the dispute.
Brazil’s foreign minister also flew to Washington to meet with Rubio on Wednesday. And U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick talked by phone with his Brazilian counterpart, two of the Brazilian officials told NBC News. They also said the call did not go well.
Lula has not yet announced whether or how Brazil will retaliate against the U.S. tariffs.
On Thursday, a U.S. appeals court panel heard arguments on a challenge to Trump’s authority to impose tariffs by executive order brought by businesses and a coalition of state attorneys general. Tariff opponents argue the White House has not established that a national emergency exists to justify Trump’s circumventing what is, with some emergency exceptions, supposed to be congressional authority over tariffs.
Several of the judges on the panel pressed the Justice Department lawyer representing the government on the president’s right to impose steep duties using an economic emergency law that does not specifically mention tariffs. No other president has ever tried to impose tariffs under the 1977 law the Trump administration is citing. The case is expected to eventually end up at the Supreme Court.