United States tariffs on Brazilian goods rose to 50 percent on Wednesday, and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva says he currently sees no room for direct talks with US President Donald Trump, as it would likely be "humiliating."
He told Reuters in an interview that Brazil has no plans to impose reciprocal tariffs, nor will his government abandon ministerial-level talks. However, Lula himself is in no hurry to call the White House.
"The day my intuition tells me that Trump is ready to talk, I will not hesitate to call him," Lula told the BBC from his presidential residence in Brasilia. "But today my intuition tells me that he does not want to talk. And I will not humiliate myself."
Although Brazilian exports are now subject to some of the highest tariffs imposed by Trump, new US trade barriers are unlikely to derail Latin America's largest economy, giving Lula more room to persist in his stance towards Trump than most Western leaders, Reuters reports.
Lula said US-Brazil relations were at "the lowest point in 200 years" after Trump linked the new tariffs to his demands to drop the prosecution of right-wing former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is on trial for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2022 election.
The president said that Brazil's Supreme Court, which is handling the case against Bolsonaro, "doesn't care about what Trump says, nor should it," adding that Bolsonaro should also be held accountable for provoking Trump's intervention, calling the former right-wing president a "traitor to the homeland."
"We have already forgiven the American intervention in the 1964 coup," said Lula, who began his political career as a union leader protesting the military rule that followed the overthrow of a democratically elected president with US support.
"But this is no small intervention now. This is the president of the United States who thinks he can dictate rules to a sovereign country like Brazil. That is unacceptable."
The Brazilian president said he had no personal problem with Trump, adding that they could meet at the United Nations General Assembly next month or at the UN climate summit in November. But he recalled Trump's tendency to publicly humiliate guests at the White House, such as South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
"What Trump did to Zelensky was humiliating. It's not normal. What he did to Ramaphosa was humiliating," Lula said. "One president cannot humiliate another. I respect everyone and I demand respect."
Lula said his ministers are struggling to establish dialogue with their American counterparts, so his government is currently focusing on domestic policies to cushion the economic blow of the US tariffs, while maintaining "fiscal responsibility."
The president did not want to elaborate on the measures being prepared to support Brazilian companies, which are expected to include credit lines and other export assistance.
He also said he planned to contact leaders of the BRICS countries, starting with India and China, to discuss a possible joint response to the US tariffs.
“There is no coordination among BRICS members yet, but there will be,” Lula said, comparing multilateral action to the power of collective bargaining from his union days. “What bargaining power does a small country have against the United States? None.”
In addition, he said that Brazil is considering the possibility of filing a collective lawsuit with the World Trade Organization (WTO) together with other countries.
"I was born to negotiate," said Lula, who grew up in poverty, rose through the union movement and served as Brazil's president for two terms, from 2003 to 2010. He returned to politics in 2022 and defeated then-President Bolsonaro.
However, he said he was in no rush to reach a deal or to retaliate against US tariffs: "We have to be very careful," he said.
Asked about countermeasures for American companies, such as increased taxation of large technology firms, Lula said his government was considering ways to tax American companies on the same terms as Brazilian ones.
Lula also outlined plans to establish a new national policy regarding Brazil's strategic mineral resources, treating them as a matter of "national sovereignty," in order to break with the current practice of exporting minerals without significant added value for the country.
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