Brazilian finance minister Fernando Haddad said that a meeting with US treasury secretary Scott Bessent scheduled for 13 August to discuss import tariffs has been cancelled, attributing it to "coordinated efforts of the far-right in the US".
"Anti-democratic activists worked along with White House press officers and the meeting scheduled on Wednesday was cancelled," Haddad said in an televised interview Monday.
Neither the White House nor the US Treasury have issued statements regarding the meeting or answered Argus' requests for comment.
The meeting — which was set to take place remotely, according to Haddad — would address the 50pc tariffs imposed by the US government to Brazilian products. The tariffs include a large array of products such as coffee and cocoa, but exclude around 700 products — about 45pc of products exported by Brazil — such as crude, pig iron, orange pulp and juice, fertilizers and aircraft components.
US president Donald Trump said that he imposed tariffs due in part to Brazil's "witch hunt" against former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is charged with attempting a coup after he lost the 2022 election.
Bolsonaro's oldest son, congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, has been accused by Brazil's government of interfering in his father's trial by lobbying the US government to issue economic threats against Brazil's government until it backs down from its charges against his father.
Eduardo has been in the US since March. He denied that the meeting was cancelled because of his actions, saying on social media that the cancellation "... is not actually a sign of disrespect toward Brazil, but rather a snub to the Lula government." He said Haddad offered no proof that the meeting was cancelled due to political interference.
US-Brazil trade surplus grows
Brazil exported $23.7bn in goods to the US in January-July, a 4.2pc increase from a year prior. That increase could be due in part to planned exports moving earlier to escape the 50pc tariffs that began in early August, according to the US-Brazil chamber of commerce Amcham.
Imports into Brazil from the US also grew by almost 13pc to $26bn, Amcham said. That brings the US' trade surplus with Brazil in the first half of the year to $2.3bn, a more than seven-fold increase from a year before.
Brazilian authorities, including vice-president Geraldo Alckmin, have said the 50pc tariffs imposed by the US are "unjustified" because Brazil is one of the few countries with which the US has a trade surplus.
