President responds to recent criticism from the North American government, which points to the system as a barrier to international trade
The president (PT) said this Thursday (April 2, 2026), during a visit to the VLT implementation works in Salvador (BA), that Pix is Brazilian and will not be modified by external pressure. The speech comes after criticism from the United States of Brazil’s payment system in a commercial report.
“He (Donald Trump) said that (Pix) distorts international trade because it creates problems for its currency. What is important for us to say to anyone who wants to listen to us: Pix is from Brazil and no one is going to make us change”, said the PT member.
“What we can do is improve Pix so that it can increasingly meet the needs of women and men in this country”, he stated. It was the first time he had discussed the subject publicly. The speech was directly requested by the minister of Secom (Secretariat of Communication), Sidônio Palmeira, who pulled the president at the end of the event and asked him to comment on the topic.
Understand
The United States government in the USTR (Office of the Trade Representative) annual report. The document states that the Central Bank of Brazil created, owns, operates and regulates Pix and that this dynamic could reduce market space for foreign payment companies, such as Visa and Mastercard, by giving preferential treatment to the platform.
The text also notes that financial institutions with more than 500,000 accounts are required to offer Pix, which, in the American assessment, could create a competitive disadvantage for external providers of electronic payment services.
The mention of Pix in the North American trade report intensifies a diplomatic debate on economic policy and financial technology between the 2 countries.
Previously, the Trump administration imposed high tariffs on Brazilian products, reaching up to 50% on items such as coffee, meat and steel, and opened an investigation under Section 301 of US trade law to investigate Brazil’s alleged discriminatory practices in sectors such as digital commerce and electronic payment services.
