3 months ago
45
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva issued a fierce rejection of President Trump’s demands for Brazil, but said he was ready for dialogue.
By Jack Nicas
Jack Nicas interviewed President Lula in Brasília on Tuesday
July 30, 2025, 5:03 a.m. ET
On my final day as The New York Times correspondent in Brazil, I interviewed the nation’s president.
It wasn’t designed that way; I had been asking for an interview for four years. It just so happened that as I prepared to depart for a new post in Mexico, diplomatic relations between the United States and Brazil ruptured.
This month, President Trump threatened to impose 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian imports in an extraordinary bid to intervene in the criminal proceedings against Brazil’s right-wing former president, Jair Bolsonaro.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil then fired back, saying Brazil’s sovereignty will not be threatened.
Now, with Mr. Trump’s tariff deadline looming on Friday, Mr. Lula and Mr. Trump still had not spoken. So Mr. Lula agreed to sit down with me, as he explained, to speak to the American public.
Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.
What is your message for President Trump?
I want to tell Trump that Brazilians and Americans do not deserve to be victims of politics, if the reason President Trump is imposing this tax on Brazil is because of the case against former President Bolsonaro. The Brazilian people will pay more for some products, and the American people will pay more for other products. And I think the cause does not merit this. Brazil has a Constitution, and the former president is being tried with a full right to a defense.
