Related video: Nearly 200 Democratic lawmakers have filed a legal brief supporting a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs.

On July 15, the Trump administration opened a Section 301 investigation into Brazil’s trade practices.

The probe targets Brazil’s “acts, policies and practices” across six wide-ranging areas: digital trade, preferential tariffs, anti-corruption, intellectual property protection, ethanol market access and illegal deforestation.

Some of these grievances are longstanding, like the one about ethanol. Deforestation is of more recent vintage.

Bundling all six into a big sprawling case will make it harder to negotiate targeted solutions. But the one about Brazil granting Mexico and India preferential tariff treatment could end talks before they even begin.

Before turning to why, consider what’s at stake in this investigation.

U.S. digital service providers face a wide variety of subtle and not-so-subtle barriers to doing business in Brazil. They need fair market access. U.S. ethanol exporters also need relief from Brazil’s on-again, off-again tariffs. They’ve been put through the wringer.

Then there’s America’s innovators, who have waited patiently for this probe for decades.

The U.S. Trade Representative has long raised concerns about Brazil’s failure to adequately protect and enforce intellectual property. Since 1999, every single U.S Trade Representative Special 301 Report has called out Brazil for excessive patent pendency. The

© The Hill