BRASILIA
Brazil shot back at US President Donald Trump’s threat to raise tariffs, saying that if he does this, they would fight fire with fire.
“It’s very simple: if he taxes Brazilian products, Brazil will reciprocate in taxing products that are exported from the United States,” President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told a press conference on Thursday in the capital Brasilia.
Lula also stressed that Brazil seeks a relationship of mutual respect with the US and expressed his desire to improve relations while strengthening trade ties with Brazil’s second-largest trading partner after China.
“I want to respect the United States and for Trump to respect Brazil. That’s all,” he said
On Trump’s vow to make Greenland part of the US and retake the Panama Canal, Lula said the president “just has to respect the sovereignty of other countries.”
Lula also highlighted the global threats to democracy.
“For me, democracy is the most important thing in humanity right now … Either we keep democracy working or we will have states more authoritarian than Hitler and fascism.”
Months away from Brazil hosting the COP30 UN climate conference this November, Lula slammed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord as “a step back for human civilization.”
Brazil is one of the countries that Trump has threatened with hiked tariffs since he returned to the White House, along with China, Mexico, Canada, and others.
