Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has ruled out any immediate direct engagement with U.S. President Donald Trump, saying he will not “humiliate” himself by initiating talks while relations between the two countries remain strained.
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Lula made the remarks in an interview with Reuters following Washington’s decision to impose 50 per cent tariffs on Brazilian goods a move he linked to Trump’s political support for former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is currently on trial for attempting to subvert the 2022 elections.
“The day my intuition says Trump is ready to talk, I won’t hesitate to call him,” Lula said. “But today my intuition says he doesn’t want to talk. And I won’t humiliate myself.”
Although Lula said his government would continue cabinet-level discussions and was not planning to announce retaliatory tariffs for now, he expressed deep concerns over what he described as an “unacceptable” attempt by Trump to pressure Brazil’s judiciary.
Brazil’s Supreme Court is prosecuting Bolsonaro for allegedly orchestrating efforts to overturn his election defeat. Trump has tied the new tariffs to calls for leniency toward the far-right former leader, a position Lula called foreign interference.
“The Supreme Court does not care what Trump says and it should not,” Lula stated. “Bolsonaro should face another trial for provoking Trump’s intervention. He is a traitor to the homeland.”
Referencing past U.S. interference, including Washington’s role in the 1964 Brazilian military coup, Lula warned that Trump’s actions were dangerously reminiscent of a bygone era.
“This now is not a small intervention. It’s the president of the United States thinking he can dictate rules for a sovereign country like Brazil. It’s unacceptable.”
Despite the escalating tensions, Lula said he had no personal issues with Trump and did not rule out a meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly next month or at the UN Climate Summit in November. Still, he pointed to Trump’s treatment of other world leaders as a warning.
“What Trump did with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskiy was humiliation. What he did with [South African President Cyril] Ramaphosa was humiliation,” he said. “One president can’t be humiliating another. I respect everyone, and I demand respect.”
Lula said Brazil was not standing idle. His administration is exploring domestic economic buffers, including potential credit lines and export support for affected companies. At the same time, it is pursuing multilateral action through BRICS and the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
“I was born negotiating,” Lula said, referencing his rise from poverty and union activism. “But we need to be very cautious.”
He added that he had begun efforts to coordinate with BRICS leaders—starting with India and China—to forge a collective response to U.S. tariffs.
“There is no coordination among the BRICS yet, but there will be,” he said, comparing it to collective bargaining power. “What is the negotiating power of one little country with the United States? None.”
On the possibility of retaliatory measures against U.S. companies, Lula confirmed that Brazil is considering steps to ensure American firms are taxed on the same footing as domestic businesses.
He also revealed plans for a new national strategy on Brazil’s strategic mineral resources, saying the country must treat them as a matter of “national sovereignty,” breaking with past practices of exporting raw materials without adding value locally.
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