🎙️ How Brazil can navigate the Trump trade storm

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This week’s episodes

The newly installed Trump administration has vowed to impose 25% tariffs on steel imports and introduce reciprocal levies on all trading partners — a move that has sent shockwaves through Brazil’s manufacturing sector. The United States is Brazil’s largest market for steel exports, and the prospect of new trade barriers threatens to disrupt a crucial economic lifeline.

As global trade tensions escalate, Brazil finds itself at a crossroads. Can Latin America’s largest economy adapt to a world reshaped by protectionism, or will it become a casualty of a new era of economic nationalism?

Reporter Isabela Cruz sits down with Rubens Barbosa, Brazil’s former ambassador to the United Kingdom (1994-1999) and the United States (1999-2006), now a business consultant.

Barbosa offers his assessment of the shifting dynamics between Brasília and Washington at a time when Presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Donald Trump of the US find themselves more distant than ever.

Despite Brazil's strategic importance, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has yet to speak with Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira — even as he has engaged with diplomats from more than 50 other nations.

Meanwhile, economic ties are robust: the US is Brazil’s largest foreign investor, with more than USD 350 billion in investments and nearly 4,000 US companies operating in Latin America’s biggest economy. Cooperation extends beyond trade, with agreements spanning defense, energy, technology and several other areas.

But with a White House focused on its domestic agenda and a Brazilian president who has been openly critical of Trump, what does the future hold for this complex relationship? Barbosa unpacks the challenges ahead — and where both nations might still find common ground.

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