BRASILIA - The governments of Brazil and the United States have held "private talks" in recent days and negotiated ways to prevent the 50% tariff increase on Brazilian products , announced by US President Donald Trump, from coming into effect on August 1.

It was the first time that the tone of the dialogue went from “lose-lose” to “win-win”, without any kind of legal implication, as vice-president Geraldo Alckmin defined to Estadão.

Alckmin met with U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick last Saturday."It was a long conversation, lasting approximately 50 minutes. We emphasized that President Lula has guided the negotiations, without political or ideological bias," said Alckmin, who is also Minister of Development, Industry, Commerce, and Services.

Expand commercial relationship

Brazil has offered gestures to “significantly” expand trade ties between the two countries.

Alckmin stated that one of the proposals presented by businesspeople to give "materiality" to the objective of expanding business with the Americans was to double the bilateral trade relationship in the next five years.

The United States is Brazil's second-largest trading partner, behind only China. The country's trade balance with the United States had a deficit of US$590 million last month and US$1.67 billion in the first half of this year; in other words, the Brazilian economy imports more than it exports to the United States.

As in the export list, the US also ranks second among the countries from which Brazil imports the most, behind only China.

Expand investments

Expand productive investments between the two countries.

Double taxation agreement

The Lula administration also advocates for a double taxation agreement. Currently, eight of the ten most exported products from the United States to Brazil have zero tariffs.

A double taxation agreement is an international treaty that aims to prevent the same type of income from being taxed twice, once in each country. It establishes mechanisms to define in which country a given tax should be paid and how the amount already paid in one country can be offset in the other.

Critical minerals

Another point of negotiation on the table concerns Brazil's critical minerals. This Thursday, the 24th, the chargé d'affaires of the United States Embassy in Brazil, Gabriel Escobar, again expressed the U.S.'s interest in the country's critical and strategic minerals.

Critical minerals are minerals considered essential for strategic sectors such as technology, defense, and the energy transition. They include elements such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and rare earths, essential for electric vehicle batteries, wind turbines, solar panels, and semiconductors.

When asked about possible negotiations with the US involving critical Brazilian minerals, Alckmin stated that the mining agenda “is very long and can be explored and advanced.”

"The mining sector is one that we receive (in meetings). In fact, it is another sector that exports to the United States only 3%, but imports machinery and equipment at more than 20%, which shows, once again, a huge surplus in the trade balance (on the US side)," said the vice president at a press conference this Thursday.