USTR Finalizes 25 % Tariff Regime on Most Brazilian Imports, Carving Out $11 B in Exemptions

This move echoes the 1987 US–Japan semiconductor dispute, another Section 301 case that imposed duties after bilateral talks collapsed and reshaped an entire industry. Like then, Washington is bypassing stalled WTO mechanisms and wielding domestic law to police partners’ internal policies—from digital payments to forestry—signalling a return to pre-1947 unilateralism. The episode fits a broader post-2016 trend: trade tools are now frontline instruments of foreign-policy and electioneering, not just economics. Over a 100-year arc, today’s tariff—coming after the Supreme Court narrowed presidential powers under IEEPA—illustrates the pendulum swing from the late-20th-century free-trade consensus toward a fragmenting, bloc-based system reminiscent of the 1930 Smoot-Hawley era. Whether Brazil retaliates or diversifies away from US markets will determine if this is a blip or another brick in the long wall of de-globalisation.