President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party) said that US President Donald Trump is not the “sheriff of the world.” The Brazilian politician was referring to the taxes the US has imposed on imports and said he is “concerned” with the current situation.
“I frankly am very concerned about the behavior of the American government regarding its taxation of all products coming from other countries. I’m concerned because, in the end, it’s free trade that’s being damaged. I’m concerned because multilateralism is being defeated. I’m concerned because the American president is not the sheriff of the world. He’s just the president of the United States,” said Lula at a press conference on Thursday morning (27) in Tokyo, at the end of his visit to Japan.
Lula said that “instead of taking unilateral measures,” Trump should “talk to the governors of other countries, to presidents, to politicians of other countries to make his decisions”.
According to the president, Brazil should appeal to the World Trade Organization (WTO) against the imposition of tariffs. If there is no result, the Brazilian government will adopt reciprocal tariffs.
“I don’t know what Japan will do. In Brazil’s case, we will appeal to the WTO and, if that doesn’t work, we will adopt the measures we can, which is reciprocity by taxing American products. That’s what we’re going to do. I hope Japan does the same. I hope Japan can appeal to the WTO, but that’s a sovereign decision by the Japanese government that I can’t influence,” said Lula.
The president spoke about the issue when asked about multilateralism and free trade in the relationship between Japan and other countries, including the United States. “From what I know, the United States imports a lot of Japanese cars and there are also many Japanese companies producing cars there. I honestly don’t know what the benefit would be from increasing tariffs on Japanese cars by 25%,” he said.
Lula believes that “it will become more expensive for the American people to buy” and that this “could cause higher inflation” and, consequently, higher interest rates. “I don’t foresee a positive horizon in this tax increase policy. I think it would be much better to discuss a pricing policy that is fair for those who sell and fair for those who buy, for both countries.”
Visit to Asia
Lula travelled to Japan and Vietnam to strengthen Brazil’s trade relations with Asian countries. At a meeting with Brazilian businessmen linked to the Brazilian Association of Meat Exporters (Abiec) in Tokyo, the president said he intended to recover the US$ 6 billion trade balance Brazil and Japan have lost over the last decade.
“The Brazilian-Japanese trade balance in 2011 was US$ 17 billion. Today, it has fallen to US$ 11 billion. That means that, right now, we have US$ 6 billion to recover during my visit here,” he said.
After Tokyo, Lula is due to meet Vietnam’s president, Luong Cuong, and the country’s prime minister, Pham Minh Chinh, on Friday (28). The president believes that the Asian country, being an emerging one, may be interested in establishing and expanding trade relations with Brazil.
