RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The president of the United States, Donald Trump, said on Tuesday, July 30th, that he wants to negotiate a free trade deal with Brazil, amid praise for his Brazilian counterpart, Jair Bolsonaro, “a great gentleman” with whom he said he had a “fantastic relationship”.
Trump said he wants to start negotiations to resolve the current trade dispute between the two nations. In October last year, the U.S. president criticized Brazil for charging high tariffs on imports from the United States.
“We will work on a free trade agreement with Brazil. Brazil is a great trading partner,” he insisted.
United States Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross is in Brazil this week to promote the bilateral exchange. His visit, the first of a U.S. Secretary of Commerce to the country since 2011, seeks to strengthen the Trump administration’s commitment to “a strong commercial and economic relationship with Brazil,” according to an official statement.
Ross will attend this Tuesday’s commemoration of a hundred years of the United States Chamber of Commerce in Brazil (Amcham Brasil) in São Paulo, and on Wednesday he will travel to Brasília to meet with Bolsonaro, the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, and the Minister of Infrastructure, Tarcísio Freitas.