Brazil vice president vows timely and appropriate response to new US tariffs

Brazil’s Vice President Geraldo Alckmin has said the country will respond to US sanctions “appropriately and at the right time.”

“The idea is not revenge. They talk about the principle of ‘an eye for an eye,’ but in that case, both sides will become blind. Reciprocity means showing that we have been treated unfairly and that we want to correct it, and we have the means to do so at the right time and in the right way,” Alckmin said, according to the EFE news agency.

The vice president said the US measures were unjustified but stressed that Brazil remains open to negotiations.

Alckmin made the remarks at a press conference just hours before the United States imposed 25% tariffs on a range of Brazilian goods, striking a more conciliatory tone than President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s earlier statements. After Washington announced the new tariffs, Lula said Brazil would apply its reciprocity law.

The new US tariffs followed an investigation by the Office of the US Trade Representative, which concluded that Brazilian measures were harmful to American companies.