President Donald Trump has generally tried to justify his tariffs by asserting that they can help narrow the trade deficits the U.S. runs with most of the world. That argument is based on the fact that nearly all countries sell Americans more than they buy from the United States.

But the case of Brazil is different.

The U.S. announced a 25% tariff on Brazilian goods on July 15, 2026. A second measure, introduced eight days later, added another 12.5 percentage points on much of that trade. Both took effect on July 24, bringing the total to 37.5% where they overlap.

Here the imbalance goes the other way. U.S. exports to South America’s biggest economy have exceeded its imports for years. In 2025, American companies exported about US$54 billion in goods to Brazil, mainly refined fuel, aircraft parts, industrial machinery, fertilizer and electronics. They imported about $40 billion in Brazilian goods, mostly crude oil, semi-finished steel, coffee, orange juice, wood pulp, beef and passenger jets built by Embraer, the world’s third-largest aircraft maker.

In total, the U.S. ran a $14 billion trade surplus with Brazil.

Trump is discouraging Brazilian imports anyway. And this is his second attempt to do so. He announced a 50% tariff on Brazilian goods in July 2025, which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in February 2026, along with most of his other tariffs.

As scholars of international political economy who study U.S. trade policy and Brazil’s trade negotiations, we are researching why the U.S. imposed tariffs on Brazil despite Brazil’s trade deficit with the U.S., and how Brazil is responding.

In our view, this dispute was never really about trade. It began with Trump’s objections to a criminal case against former President Jair Bolsonaro – his political ally in Brazil. Today, with Brazil on the verge of a presidential election, standing up to Washington could prove a winning argument for the incumbent, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Making many exceptions

The administration spared 471 Brazilian products from the tariffs, among them coffee, wood and wood products, crude oil, natural gas, fertilizer, orange juice and pig iron. Most of the exempted........

© The Conversation