Large companies and representatives of Brazilian sectors gained an unprecedented role in international relations during the first year of Donald Trump’s third term in the United States. Faced with tariffs against Brazilian products exported, companies needed to use their influence with customers and the American government itself to circumvent a restrictive tax rate against their products.
From Embraer planes to JBS meat, several sectors of the Brazilian economy received the news in July with fear that national products would be subject to a 40% tariff, added to the 10% previously imposed on several commercial partners. It didn’t take long for them to go to the negotiating table.
Even before the Brazilian government managed to establish contact with the top brass of the Trump administration, Embraer’s CEO, Francisco Gomes Neto, had met with authorities such as the secretaries of commerce Howard Lutnick, Treasury, Scott Bessent, and transportation, Sean Duffy. When Trump effectively signed the decree officializing the increase in taxes on Brazilian products, .
“International relations are now leaving the purely political field and relations between companies are starting to become important. Not only the government channel seeks dialogue. And that is what Brazilian companies did”, explains the professor at the Institute of International Relations at USP, Marislei Nishijima.
But the tariff was not just an effect of lobbying by Brazilian companies with the American government and their local customers: Brazil is a large exporter of common products on the American table, such as orange juice, coffee and meat.
At first, orange juice was another product spared by the American government, when institutional relations between Brazil and the United States continued to be impeded. Data from July showed that Brazil .
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In his letter announcing the surcharge against Brazil, Trump directly cited the trial of former president Jair Bolsonaro in the Federal Supreme Court (STF) for the coup plot, classifying the process as “politically motivated persecution” and accusing Brazilian authorities of committing “serious human rights abuses”. It later became public that the deputy was seeking sanctions against Brazil.
Other products sensitive to the American food basket continued to be impacted by an aggregate tariff of 50%. Meat and coffee exported by Brazil, for example, would remain more expensive.
And despite what might be expected at first, Brazilian products destined for the American market would need to find other paths. Coffee, for example, saw Europe accommodate much of the demand lost in the USA, with an increase in exports of around 28.9% compared to the year to November 2025. Beef sales were more than offset, especially due to Chinese demand, with growth of 39.8%, show data from FGV’s Foreign Trade Indicator (ICOMEX).
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Although commodities in general have found commercial alternatives in other markets, some of the products that remain overtaxed may find it difficult to reposition their exports. “For machinery and equipment, industrialized products that follow the target consumer’s specifications, it becomes more difficult to replace. When you lose market share, it is more difficult to regain it”, ponders the coordinator of FGV’s Global Business Center and former Secretary of Foreign Trade, Lucas Ferraz.
For Nishijima, international relations today are greatly influenced by polarization — reinforced by social networks. This dynamic has caused countries to seek strategic alignments with peers on the same ideological spectrum, which was marked in Donald Trump’s relationship with Argentine president Javier Milei, for example.
The effect of this, for Brazil, was a disadvantage in the relationship with the United States given the “shift change” in federal administrations, when Donald Trump takes over from the American extreme right and Lula as a representative of the Brazilian left.
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Contrary to what some might think, however, Trump’s unpredictability in international politics did not reduce investments in the United States precisely because of the ideological factor. Countries end up investing in their ideologically aligned peers.
The rapprochement
When Trump took the stage to give his speech at the 80th UN General Assembly, on September 23, President Lula, in the audience, reacted with surprise to his American counterpart’s speech. “We had excellent chemistry. He seemed like a very nice man. I liked him, and I only do business with people I like,” Trump said about Lula, just minutes after a brief meeting between the two backstage. The president signaled a new meeting soon.
Three weeks earlier, another Brazilian had already spoken to the American president. According to Reuters, the owner of the JBS meatpacking company, Joesley Baptista, was with Trump in a private meeting. In it, Baptista reportedly told Trump that tariffs imposed on Brazilian products were making beef more expensive for Americans.
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What followed after the meeting between Lula and Trump at the UN was a rapprochement between the two leaders and the re-establishment of high-level diplomatic contacts. On November 20, the American president dropped additional 40% tariffs on a series of Brazilian products. Meat was among them.
“Charisma is something strong for Lula. He balanced this when he talked to Trump”, says Nishijima. “International relations are in these phases of government that change, and are also being mediated by companies.”
The Federal Government estimates that 22% of Brazilian exports to the United States remain subject to surcharges. According to the calculation, of the US$40.4 billion exported by Brazil to the USA in 2024, US$8.9 billion remains subject to the additional tariff of 40%.
Another US$6.2 billion continues with a 10% tariff and US$10.9 billion is subject to the differentiated rates of Section 232, applied to sectors under the argument of national security such as steel and aluminum.
A calculation made by FGV EESP’s Center for Global Business Studies (FGV Global Business) points to a higher number, 41% of products still taxed at 50%. Ferraz explains that products subject to Section 232 should not be disregarded from the account, as countries like the United Kingdom, for example, managed to negotiate their rates even for sectors subject to investigations.
If not all countries are taxed equally, the correct option would be to consider products subject to the Section 232 rate, points out Ferraz, as there is a difference in the relative competitiveness of the countries.
“The removal of these products, this new list of products, including beef, coffee and fruit, mainly, which has grown a lot”, explains Ferraz. The CPI, consumer price index, calculates food inflation of 2.6% in the 12 months up to November.
For him, the rapprochement between the countries has not yet had major practical effects beyond the rapprochement of dialogue between high-level diplomatic interlocutors. “To have a positive concrete result, we will need to change the negotiating strategy”, points out the researcher.
Topics dear to the American government, such as the exploration of rare earths, barriers against American ethanol and the regulation of big tech may need to be placed on the negotiation tables in future bilateral meetings.
