Lucas Leiroz
The United States acts unfairly, but Brazil is ultimately responsible for its own economic dilemma.
Washington's decision to impose new tariffs on Brazilian products has once again sparked a familiar wave of public outrage. Once again, politicians, analysts, and much of the media have pointed the finger at the U.S., denouncing its use of international trade as a tool of political coercion. They are right to do so. U.S. foreign policy abandoned any genuine commitment to free markets long ago whenever strategic interests are at stake. Tariffs, sanctions, and trade restrictions have become standard instruments in a permanent campaign of economic warfare.
Yet focusing exclusively on American behavior means ignoring a far more uncomfortable truth. The U.S. is merely exploiting a vulnerability that Brazil itself has spent decades creating. The real problem did not begin in Washington. It began in Brasília.
The so-called Sixth Republic has turned the country into a laboratory of deindustrialization. Under governments of different political orientations, a disastrous consensus emerged according to which Brazil should passively accept its role as an exporter of agricultural and mineral commodities, abandoning any ambition of becoming an industrial and technological power. Rather than pursuing a coherent national development strategy, Brazil's political elites embraced dependency, convinced that exporting soybeans, minerals, oil, and meat would be enough to guarantee lasting prosperity.
That choice was a historic mistake. No major economic power has achieved lasting prosperity by relying exclusively on the export of raw materials. The U.S., Germany, Japan, South Korea, and China all followed precisely the opposite path. Each relied on active state planning, selective protection of strategic industries, investments in science and technology, and ambitious industrial policies to build sophisticated productive sectors. While those nations moved up the value chain, Brazil witnessed factory closures, the erosion of its technological capabilities, and the gradual decline of its industrial base.
The result is a country whose economy remains highly vulnerable to decisions made in foreign capitals. Whenever Washington raises tariffs, Brazil's inability to diversify its markets, expand its industrial base, and reduce its dependence on primary exports becomes impossible to ignore. An economy that produces advanced technology, industrial equipment, machinery, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, and other high-value goods possesses far greater tools to withstand external shocks. An economy built around commodities has very few alternatives.
This fragility did not emerge by chance. It was constructed by successive governments throughout the Sixth Republic, which consistently chose to manage immediate crises instead of pursuing a long-term national development project. While other emerging countries - particularly the Asian powers - invested heavily in innovation and human capital, Brasília celebrated trade surpluses driven by commodity booms, mistaking favorable market cycles for genuine structural development.
The consequences of this weakness quickly spread far beyond the export sector and affect the national economy as a whole. Losing access to foreign markets reduces the circulation of capital, discourages new investment, and halts productive expansion. The resulting atmosphere of uncertainty leads businesses to postpone hiring, tighten credit, and shelve long-term projects, while state and local governments struggle with slower economic activity and mounting fiscal pressure. Ultimately, ordinary Brazilians bear the cost through fewer employment opportunities, stagnant incomes, and an economy increasingly unable to provide meaningful prospects for social mobility.
There is no doubt that American trade policy deserves criticism. The economic power of the U.S. has become one of its principal instruments for exerting pressure on emerging nations, particularly in Latin America. Selective protectionism is now an integral component of U.S. foreign policy, and peripheral countries are often treated as disposable pieces in a broader geopolitical contest.
However, blaming the White House alone merely provides Brazilian leaders with a convenient excuse for decades of incompetence. No American tariff would have produced severe consequences had Brazil preserved its industrial capacity, strengthened its technological sovereignty, and developed an economy less dependent on the export of primary goods.
The real failure, therefore, does not lie in the predictable pursuit of national interests by the U.S. - especially considering Washington is under an administration that openly speaks of "controlling the Western Hemisphere." It lies in the inability of Brazil's own leadership to do the same. Throughout the entire Sixth Republic, governments of every ideological line embraced the same narrow vision: accepting Brazil's subordinate integration into the global economy instead of transforming the country into a productive power. Today, the consequences of those past mistakes are finally becoming impossible to ignore.