Fruit seller Roberto da Silveira Jesus (50) Schilt an orange and lets his customer taste a lot. “They are nice and juicy today,” he says enthusiastically. Behind him the oranges are highly piled on a table.
This week, US President Donald Trump increased the import tariffs on Brazilian products to 50 percent, including on oranges. If those new taxes will start on 6 August, that has enormous impact. Brazil is the largest producer and exporter of orange juice in the world, and 42 percent of that output goes to the United States.
“Here on the market the oranges will become cheaper, and the consumers will be happy, but we will stay with a huge surplus at the same time,” says Da Silveira. At the age of ten he already started to help on the market to earn some money. “I dragged pockets and helped several sellers. I have had my own stall with a regular clientele for years.” That stall is in the Ipanema district, where every Tuesday is the market.
The sellers talk a lot about what Brazil is waiting for these days now that Trump is imposing extremely heavy import duties the South American country, much heavier than other countries. “I am afraid that a lot of oranges will spoil, and that we will eventually suffer loss,” sighs of saleswoman Arminda Martins (51).
Crash
While Brazilian politicians, diplomats and top figures from the business community still made frantic attempts in the United States to get the table, it became clear on Wednesday that Trump is inexorable. He wants to punish Brazil hard. And not because the Americans are losing out in mutual trade; Brazil imports more from the US than it exports to this country. Trump has a purely political reason: he wants to put an end to the persecution of his great friend and ally, the extreme right-wing ex-president Jair Bolsonaro. In the event of an earlier threat with the higher levies, at the beginning of July, Trump already explicitly linked this to the ‘unjust treatment’ of Bolsonaro.
Bolsonaro is on trial for, among other things, the planning of a coup after the 2022 elections, which he lost to Lula da Silva in the nick of time. He would have been the driving force behind the storming of government buildings by his supporters, a week after the inauguration of the new president, at the beginning of 2023. Bolsonaro would also have had knowledge of a planned murder attack on, among others, Lula and a judge of the Supreme Court, Alexandre de Moraes. He manages various procedures against Bolsonaro.
The former president risks tens of years in prison. He is excluded from participating in the presidential elections next year and has recently started at home with an ankle band. According to Trump there is a “witch hunt” on Bolsonaro.
“That Trump is involved in Brazil in this way is a direct threat to our national sovereignty,” says political scientist Pablo Ibanez. “In fact, he is busy with the intentional opposition and dismantling of our democracy. Brazil has a clear separation of powers.” He calls Trumps interference “unprecedented.”
Equal currency
The increase in American import duties has caused a deep crisis in the two hundred year old trade relationship between Brazil and the US, after China the most important trading partner of the Brazilians. Lula previously threatened with taxes on American products, but according to Ibanez that can be counterproductive and harm its own economy. “Take our aircraft manufacturer Embraer. We are selling aircraft to the US, and had to deal with taxes. But we also import parts from the US for those aircraft, and they will be more expensive for us if we repay the US with the same currency. We have to work extremely carefully,” he says.
According to Ibanez, the question is whether it is only the Americans to do Bolsonaro. “Trump is also heavily irritated about Brics [het economisch samenwerkingsverband van Brazilië, Rusland, India, China en Zuid-Afrika]. Our country is an important player in this, and this year it is also chairman. He has previously threatened to impose all BRICS countries import duties. Trump is worried that in the future there may be its own BRICS Munt, which means that these countries will float without the dollar trade. ”
Although the Brazilian trade with China is probably increasing due to the crisis, Ibanez is not necessarily the way that his country has to go on. “Brazil is geographically closer to the US, it is our big neighbor. Until now, the Brazilian economy has known all kinds of allies: the US, the EU, and China.”
In an interview with The New York Times This week, President Lula addressed the Americans and Trump directly. “I think it is important that President Trump is considering the following: if he wants to fight a political struggle, we let it treat it as a political struggle. If he wants to talk about trade, let’s sit together and talk about trade. But you can’t confuse everything.”
On Wednesday, Trump also aimed his arrows at Judge Alexandre de Moraes. On the basis of the American Magnitsky law, intended to punish foreigners worldwide for serious violation of human rights or corruption, certain Trump that the Moraes will no longer receive a visa for the US. His American bank accounts are frozen. According to the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Moraes has no bank accounts in the US.
Traiters
Bolsonaro’s son and MP Eduardo Bolsonaro plays an important role in the background of the crisis. He ‘fled’ to the US earlier this year. There he uses his contacts with Trump, Minister of Foreign Affairs Rubio and Ultrarrecht leaders such as Steve Bannon to advocate stopping the trial against his father. He also wants amnesty for the convicted persons of the storming of government buildings.
On social media, Eduardo thanked Bolsonaro Trump for the hard approach of Brazil. He also threatened that if the trial against Bolsonaro is not stopped, “there will be no elections next year.”
Many Brazilians now see the Bolsonaro family as traitors. And even within Bolsonaro’s own party, criticism can be heard about the American treatment of Brazil.
The anger is also great on the market in Ipanema. Retired teacher Sonia Campos is paying just some mangos and papayas. “What does Trump interfere with?” She says in astonished. “Let him occupy himself with his own country and his own problems!”