The reaction of the Plateau to the came tariff with the announcement, a package of measures that provides R $ 30 billion in credit, extension of special regimes, suspension of taxes and incentives for public purchases. The justification is to protect companies and workers from external shock and reinforce commercial diplomacy.
The political context helps to understand the choice: given the loss of competitiveness in traditional markets, the immediate strategy is to offer relief to exporters and preserve jobs. However, the ability to face the tariff will depend less on subsidies and more to consolidate new markets and to integrate consistently with global value chains. It is this structural movement that Brazil has not yet faced.
These are today a problem for Brazilian foreign trade, but the root of vulnerability is domestic. Brazil has never fully integrated into international chains. He preferred a protection model that in the name of preserving specific sectors.
The book International Commercial Integration of Brazil, from CDPP, shows that the average rate of national industry is 12%, compared to 4.4% of the OECD. In addition, 86% of imports are subject to non -tariff barriers, compared to 72% on the world average. In the service sector, Brazil is the only country that simultaneously charges CIDE and IOF about remittances abroad. Tariffs on machines and equipment follow in two digits, exception between eighteen countries analyzed. These choices increase costs, reduce access to modern inputs, make innovation difficult, and increase the distance from open economies.
This background makes the country vulnerable to external shocks. When a tariff arises, the immediate response is often protecting companies, but protection is only justified if it comes with a clear opening agenda. Marcos Mendes warns that emergency policies, when they become permanent, consolidate privileges and perpetuate inefficiencies. The Brazilian experience is full of special regimes that were born as temporary and became permanent tax commitments. If sovereign Brazil follows this trajectory, it will repeat a cycle in which costs grow without productivity gains.
Structural vulnerability is not limited to the economic field. The environmental agenda could be a differential for Brazil in the contest for markets. Instead, it became another point of attention. The PhD in Economics Carlos Góes notes that the ecological reputation has become a decisive to access investments and consolidate commercial agreements. This is not just an image: sustainable exports have a longer -term impact on employment and income.
Thus, the suspension of the soy moratorium in August exemplifies the risk of walking in the opposite direction. Created in 2006, the pact between producers, companies and civil society organizations prevented the commercialization of soybeans from newly desmated areas in the Amazon. For nearly two decades, it functioned as a kind of informal sustainability seal that expanded the confidence of international buyers. Its dissolution weakens this capital just as environmental clauses became a mandatory part of trade treaties and global financing requirements. The risk is to exchange tariff barriers to reputational barriers.
The Brazilian delay raises the cost of each new crisis, but there is still gains to capture. The path is to predictably reduce rates, simplify rules, make Mercosur more flexible and correct distortions in services, combining this with verifiable environmental commitments and transition policies that prepare workers and sectors. Trump’s tariff is fleeting; The isolation of Brazil lasts decades. The real choice is not between opening or protecting, but continuing stuck to an expensive and stagnant model or disputing space in value global chains.
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