Free Trade

America Has a Huge Trade Surplus With Brazil. Trump Just Put 25 Percent Tariffs on Brazilian Goods Anyway.

It's almost like there is no real underlying principle guiding the Trump administration's tariff policies.

Eric Boehm | 7.16.2026 3:00 PM

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The Trump administration's trade war with the world has been a haphazard, often chaotic affair, but if you had to identify a single, guiding principle for the administration's actions, it would be balancing America's trade deficits.

President Donald Trump has been talking about the trade deficit for years (even though he sometimes seems to confuse it with the federal budget deficit, which is a very different thing). During his second term, the president's top trade officials have also stressed the trade deficit as a key metric by which to measure the effectiveness of Trump's tariffs.

For example, when pressed by Rep. Brendan Boyle (D–Pa.) during a hearing last year on what results a successful tariff policy would produce, U.S.........

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