Brazil and USA face a tense moment after Trump announced that it will impose 50% tariffs from 1 August
Brazilian President Lula da Silva said on Friday that if US President Donald Trump were Brazilian and promoted an invasion such as the capitol on January 6, 2022, he would be arrested.
“If Trump were Brazilian and here had a capitol and he would do what he did in the United States he would also be arrested,” Lula da Silva defended in a strong speech to artisanal fishermen and farmers in the state of Espírito Santo.
Lula da Silva thus alluded to the process in which Jair Bolsonaro is being accused of coup d’état, for the events that culminated in the attack of radicals to the three powers in Brasilia, on January 8, 2023, in an event similar to the one year earlier in the United States, on January 6, 2022.
Nicknamed Bolsonaro as a “thing,” Lula also criticized Eduardo Bolsonaro, the former president’s son, to meet in the United States to do lobby for his father and to praise Trump’s announced those against Brazilian products.
“What kind of man is this?” Asked the Brazilian head of state, then attacking: “We need these people to create shame in the face.”
Regarding the process in which Bolsonaro is accused, Lula da Silva said that “he will be tried based on the case.”
“If he is innocent he will be acquitted, as I went,” he stressed, warning, however, that, “If he is guilty, he goes to jail as everyone has to go.”
On Wednesday, Trump announced the rates that he will impose on Brazil from August 1, in a letter to Lula da Silva who published on his social networks, in which he alleged a false commercial deficit with Brazil, expressing his discomfort with the criminal case against Bolsonaro.
According to Trump, Bolsonaro is being the victim of a “witch hunt”, so he demanded that criminal proceedings and the “persecution” to which he is subject “immediately.”
This Friday, Lula da Silva has again said that he will try to negotiate so that the tariffs are not applied, but, if necessary, will use the reciprocity law.
“This country will not lower its head to anyone. No one will be afraid in this country with speech and bravado. No one. And I think in this regard, we will have the support of the Brazilian people, who does not accept any provocation,” he said.
“Between trade and service, we have a deficit (…) with the US. I should tax it,” he added.
