Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – The Trump Administration threatened to impose additional tariffs of up to 12.5% on imports from 60 economies, including Brazil and China. Washington alleges that these countries do not make sufficient efforts against forced labor, which, it claims, impacts American trade. Despite recognizing the problem, analysts and the Government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva itself consider that the US intends to use the issue as an "excuse" to expand its protectionist measures.
First modification: 06/05/2026 - 03:54 Last modification: 06/05/2026 - 04:08
First, on June 2, the United States Government announced new 25% tariffs on Brazilian exports, with some exceptions for products considered strategic, such as meat, fruit, coffee, aircraft and rare earths, among others.
La justificación oficial de la amenaza: una investigación que acusa a Brasil de adoptar prácticas que “perjudican o restringen” el comercio con los estadounidenses. La Administración Trump cita la deforestación ilegal, la piratería, fallos en la aplicación de las leyes anticorrupción y el programa PIX de transferencia gratuita de dinero, en la mira del presidente estadounidense por quitarle terreno a las grandes compañías de tarjetas de crédito, como Visa o Mastercard.
A day later, Washington included Brazil on a list of 60 economies that do not apply measures to combat trade in products made with forced labor, something that, in its view, restricts American trade.
Based on that list, the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) plans to impose additional tariffs of 10% or 12.5% on imports from these countries. The highest tariff would be reserved for the investigated economies that do not have effective control regimes, such as Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Argentina and Saudi Arabia, among others.
In the case of Brazil, the US investigation concludes that the Latin American giant has failed to impose or enforce the ban on importing goods produced with forced labor.
According to the report, although Brazil is committed to combating slave labor in its free trade and investment agreements, it still lacks an effective legal prohibition that, in practice, prevents the entry into the domestic market of goods produced under these conditions. Therefore, Brazil's conduct was classified as “irrational” and “detrimental” to US trade.
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The report mentions that Brazil has a “blacklist” of employers who were caught subjecting workers to conditions analogous to slavery, but the focus of the US investigation is the country's failure to prohibit the import of goods produced with forced labor from other economies.
Created in 2003, the “black list” of employers is a document that the Brazilian Ministry of Labor publishes every six months, in April and October, to make visible actions to combat work in conditions analogous to slavery. Employers who fall into these illegal practices in Brazil are included on the list after completing an administrative process, with no possibility of appeal; They remain on the list for two years and are only able to leave if they do not present new cases and their situation is regularized.
Read alsoDirect to... Rio de Janeiro and President Lula da Silva's reaction to US tariffs.
In the last update, the economic activities with the highest number of employers included in the list were domestic service (23), cattle raising for slaughter (18), coffee cultivation (12), construction (10) and land preparation, cultivation and harvesting services (6).
Also included in that "black list" is the Chinese company BYD, which in October 2025 opened an electric vehicle factory in Camaçari, in the state of Bahia. The automaker was included in the registry after the rescue of Chinese workers in December 2024. In total, 163 workers had been hired for the construction of the factory in the metropolitan region of Salvador de Bahía.
The Chinese workers were found crammed into accommodation without adequate hygiene and comfort conditions, and were watched by armed security guards who prevented them from leaving the facilities. According to authorities, their passports were withheld and the contracts included illegal clauses, such as grueling work hours and no weekly rest.
Leer tambiénBrasil: BYD entra en lista de firmas con historial de condiciones laborales parecidas a esclavitud
Brazil: from a reference against forced labor to the US "blacklist"
In the midst of the problem, Brazil has been considered a world leader in the fight against forced labor by the International Labor Organization (ILO). This is because the country has developed a pioneering and comprehensive model to combat this crime, internationally recognized by the UN agency. Its strength is the creation of mobile inspection groups and the adoption of strict legislation against work in conditions analogous to slavery.
In 2025 alone, the country recorded the highest number of complaints of forced labor and conditions analogous to slavery in its history: 4,515 in total, according to data from the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship (MDHC).
Since the country officially admitted the existence of this practice in 1995, and recognized it before the ILO, the fight against contemporary forms of slave labor has been based on three fundamental pillars: inspection, employer accountability and assistance to victims. During this period, Brazil has rescued more than 68,000 workers who were victims of this situation.
Read alsoBrazil: hundreds of workers freed in the largest slavery rescue operation
"An excuse" for Trump to apply protectionist measures
"The new tariff is not intended to guarantee the dignity of workers around the world, as justified by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). If that were the concern, the White House would begin by bringing its own companies to heel, such as Amazon, which greatly exploits American workers in its warehouses," wrote in a column political scientist Leonardo Sakamoto, founder of Repórter Brasil, a prominent non-profit entity focused on research and the fight against contemporary work in conditions analogous to the slavery.
"Forced labor is simply the excuse to implement more protectionist measures after the Supreme Court annulled, in February, the tariff increase imposed by Trump," adds Sakamoto.
In the same sense, the Government of Brazil spoke out on Wednesday, describing it as “regrettable” that the United States points to such a delicate issue as a “justification” for “unilateral protectionist” measures.
“It is absurd to try to associate the competitiveness of the Brazilian economy with external inputs obtained through trade that violates human dignity,” the Government said in a statement.
The US favors itself more in the relationship
The United States has maintained a trade surplus in the exchange of goods with Brazil for years, something that Lula points to to question the economic justification of new tariffs.
Data from the Office of the US Trade Representative shows that US exports to the Brazilian market grew about 11% during 2025, reaching $54.4 billion. Meanwhile, Brazilian exports to the United States decreased by 5.7%, to 39.9 billion dollars
This gives Washington a surplus of more than $14 billion in bilateral trade in goods.
Lack of regulation and control?
The Brazilian Penal Code establishes that work analogous to slavery “is characterized by subjecting a person to forced labor or exhausting work hours, either through degrading working conditions or by restricting, by any means, their freedom of movement due to a debt owed to the employer or his representative.” For it to constitute a crime, it is not necessary for all of these elements to be present. Even the use of the term “analogous to slavery” is considered an advance with respect to the legislation of other countries, since it includes different contemporary forms of exploitation.
In Brazil, the main instrument to combat slavery is the audit carried out by the Labor Inspection of the Ministry of Labor and Employment. In 2025, 1,594 specific operations were carried out, resulting in the rescue of 2,772 workers in conditions considered illegal. In addition, the victims received more than 9 million reais in compensation (about 1.77 million dollars).
The operations are coordinated through the Special Mobile Inspection Group, which integrates various state institutions, such as the Labor Prosecutor's Office, the Federal Police, the Federal Highway Police, the Federal Public Defender's Office and the Federal Prosecutor's Office.
This inter-institutional model is considered one of the key factors for the success of the actions, since it allows everything from immediate rescue to criminal and administrative accountability of employers. France 24 participated in one of these operations in 2021.
USTR documents cite the incidence of slave labor in beef production in Brazil. But interestingly, this was not the direct reason for the new tariffs imposed on Brazil. In reality, it could be a reason for indirect pressure, since other countries import Brazilian products, such as China, competing with American meat. But the United States itself exempted meat from the new tariffs. The crux of the issue for the US is imports into Brazil from countries like China.
"Brazil has proposals in the National Congress to prohibit the import of products made with slave labor. I myself have been warning about the importance of approving this type of measure for the last 15 years," analyzes Sakamoto.
"The issue is not just passing it, which would remove the 12.5% to 10% tariffs from the group, but making the law effective. Preventing the entry of products that cannot demonstrate labor integrity is unlikely without a global system, given the low transparency of global production chains in certain areas," he adds.
According to the analyst, it would be "more productive" for the United States to accept the discussion of a global pact, which includes binding principles for companies and Human Rights. It would be, according to Sakamoto, a treaty "with obligations and sanctions that countries could impose."
Read alsoWhat is "modern slavery" and how does it relate to the Brazilian lawsuit against BYD?
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