From the perspective of the White House, the United States
\nhad negotiated a preliminary deal with Brazil, as well as Argentina and Australia, to
\nexempt the countries from punitive steel and aluminum tariffs.
\nFrom the perspective of Brazil, it was issued an ultimatum.
\nBrazil accused the Trump administration on Wednesday of breaking off
\nnegotiations over the tariffs last week and issuing a take-it-or-leave-it offer.
\nAccording to the Brazilian authorities, the United States said the country\u2019s steel and
\naluminum industries could opt for tariffs or quotas.
\nThat account appears to contradict the White House\u2019s version of the events. On
\nMonday, White House officials said they had reached agreements in principle with
\nArgentina, Australia and Brazil with regard to steel and aluminum, saying the details
\nwould \u201cbe finalized shortly.\u201d
\nThe disconnect between the United States and Brazil echoes the broader state of
\nthe trade negotiations, which have been clouded by confusion, miscommunication
\nand a general state of uncertainty over the rules of engagement.
\nWhen President Trump issued the worldwide tariffs in March, he granted
\ntemporary exemptions to Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Canada, the European Union,
\nMexico and South Korea. Almost immediately, countries scrambled to make them
\npermanent.<\/p>\n
Just hours before those exemptions were set to expire, the Trump administration
\nextended the deadline for the European Union, Canada and Mexico. It also said
\nBrazil, along with Argentina and Australia, were finalizing the details of \u201csatisfactory
\nalternative means\u201d to address national security threats posed by steel imports and
\navoid tariffs. (South Korea had previously reached an agreement as part of a broader
\ntrade deal.)
\nApparently, Brazil wasn\u2019t exactly on board.
\nIn a joint statement on Wednesday, Brazil\u2019s foreign and trade ministers said
\nthey were informed of the decision by the United States to break off negotiations last
\nThursday. They were then told that the temporarily suspended tariffs would be
\napplied \u201cimmediately\u201d or, as an alternative, they could opt for \u201crestrictive unilateral
\nquotas.\u201d
\nThe White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
\nThe president of the Brazil Steel Institute, Marco Polo de Mello Lopes, who was
\nmeeting with Brazilian officials when they got the call from Washington, said the
\nultimatum came as a complete surprise.
\n\u201cThey said the decision was made on the eve of a presidential meeting, that the
\npolitical conditions had changed, and there were no longer the conditions to keep
\nnegotiating as we had been,\u201d Mr. Lopes said in a conference call with journalists on
\nWednesday. \u201cTake it or leave it isn\u2019t the way you treat a partner.\u201d
\nIn the statement, Brazil said that if it ultimately had to choose, its aluminum
\nindustry would prefer the 10 percent tariffs on its exports to the United States while
\nits steel business favored import quotas to the 25 percent tariffs. But the Brazilian
\nauthorities said they would like to keep negotiating.
\nBrazil has argued that 80 percent of its steel exports to the United States are
\nsemifinished products used in the steel industry and therefore do not pose a threat.
\nOfficials have also noted that Brazil is the largest importer of American metallurgical
\ncoal, worth about $1 billion in 2017, which is used in Brazil\u2019s steel industry.<\/p>\n
Days before talks were broken off, Thomaz Zanotto, a consultant for Brazil\u2019s
\nsecond-biggest steel company, CSN, who had been kept abreast of negotiations, said
\nit appeared that Brazil might have to face quotas on finished products, which
\nrepresent 20 percent of exports to the United States. But they believed at the time
\nthe rest would be exempt.
\nMr. Lopes said the quotas being offered by the United States in lieu of tariffs
\nwould mean a 7.4 percent reduction in the exports of semi-finished steel products
\nand a drop of between 20 percent and 60 percent in exports of finished goods,
\ndepending on the product.
\nIn its statement, Brazil said the United States would be solely responsible for
\nputting the measures in place. The ministers \u201clamented that the negotiating process
\nhad been broken\u201d but said they were open to \u201cbuilding solutions that are reasonable
\nfor both parts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From the perspective of the White House, the United States had negotiated a preliminary deal with Brazil, as well as Argentina and Australia, to exempt the countries from punitive steel and aluminum tariffs. From the perspective of Brazil, it was issued an ultimatum. Brazil accused the Trump administration on Wednesday of breaking off negotiations over the tariffs last week and… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1644,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions\/1644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/theamericasblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}