Jair Bolsonaro, the President of Brazil, received an unpleasant shock from US President Donald Trump this weekend. While Trump was at the NATO conference in London, he sent out a series of tweets saying that the US would be imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum for both Brazil and Argentina. Bolsonaro took this quite harshly, as he has stated in the past that he is good friends with Trump, some even calling him the “Trump of the Tropics” for his similar policies. More so, this would be a backtrack for the two countries, which Trump exempted from steel and aluminum tariffs in 2018. Bolsonaro most likely feels very betrayed, as he has done many favors for the US. these include letting Americans into Brazil without visas, allowing US satellites to be launched in Brazil, and making it easier for Brazilians to purchase American wheat and ethanol. He expected favors in return, but has only gotten halfhearted support in their efforts to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Argentina on the other hand, has received full US support. This leaves him stranded, as he no longer has faith in the US to return his kindness.
Trump’s reasoning for imposing these tariffs is that he believes Brazil and Argentina have been purposefully manipulating the value of their currency to decrease, which Trump says is hurting American farmers. Brazil’s Vice President, Hamilton Mourão, denies these accusations outright, and briefly proposed that Brazil should look closer into having a better economic relationship with China. Both Brazil and Argentina have benefitted from the trade war going on between the US and China, jumping at the chance to increase the amount of agricultural goods being exported to China. These new tariffs could also push Brazil into buying 5G data from CHinese tech producer Huawei. This would only make Trump angrier, as he has told US allies to discontinue involvement with Huawei over worries that their equipment is being used to spy on other parts of the world. Now that Bolsonaro may be starting to lose trust in the US government, particularly President Trump, he may very well shift his economic focus to China in order to get back at the US.