Tariff hike: Brazil leads fight against forced labor despite US claims
Starting this Wednesday (Jul. 22), a portion of Brazilian products exported to the United States will be subject to a 25 percent tariff, following a unilateral decision by the US government, which alleges unfair trade practices by Brazil.
In addition, the Brazilian government is preparing for a new 12.5 percent surcharge, which the US government says is justified because Brazil does not prevent the importation of products made with forced labor.
However, experts interviewed by Agência Brasil disagree with the US assessment and go further, arguing that Brazil is a leader in combating forced and slave-like labor.
New round of tariffs
The 25 percent tariff announced on July 15 is justified by the US government, which alleges that Brazil has failed to combat deforestation and corruption, that its Pix instant payment system harms US companies, and that it engages in other unfair trade practices.
The Brazilian government rejects the accusations and has indicated that it is prepared to invoke the Reciprocity Law in response to the tariff, which it has described as “unfair.”
While the tariff has not yet taken effect, the government considers a new 12.5 percent tariff all but certain. In an interview with the newspaper Folha de São Paulo last Friday (17), Minister of Development, Industry, Trade, and Services Márcio Fernando Elias Rosa stated the new tariff is expected to be announced on Friday (24).
“We’ll find out whether the tariffs will be cumulative. Brazil runs the risk of facing a 37.5 percent tariff rate,” he told the newspaper.
US allegation
The likely new tariff is based on a US Trade Representative (USTR) report examining trade practices in 59 countries and the European Union.
The USTR argues that these economies “fail to impose a ban on the importation of goods produced using forced labor.”
Regarding Brazil, the document rejects the argument that international agreements prohibit the country from banning the importation of such products.
“Although Brazil claims to prohibit the importation of goods produced using forced labor through commitments made in investment and free trade agreements, these provisions do not legally prohibit the importation into the domestic market of goods produced, in whole or in part, using forced labor in another country,” the USTR said in its June 2 report.
Brazil responds
During the investigation, Brazil provided the White House with technical information on its national legal framework for curbing imports of goods produced using forced labor.
On June 3, the Brazilian government issued a statement expressing its “profound disagreement” with the US preliminary findings and characterized the measure as “protectionist” - a move aimed at defending the US economy from international competition.
“It is regrettable that an issue as important as protecting decent working conditions for millions of workers is being misused to justify unilateral protectionist measures,” the Brazilian government emphasized.
According to the Brazilian government, the International Labour Organization (ILO), a specialized agency of the United Nations, has for decades recognized the country as “an international benchmark in the fight against forced labor, thanks to a combination of enforcement, accountability, institutional cooperation, and political commitment.”
Decree No. 12,857, issued in February 2026, formalizes Brazil’s accession to ILO Convention No. 29 on forced labor. Of the organization’s 187 member countries, only six have not ratified the convention, including the United States.
Brazil further maintains that customs authorities, which oversee the entry and exit of goods into and out of the country, have the legal authority to deny entry to and confiscate any foreign goods that violate public morality, public decency, public health, or public order.
“Any good produced in whole or in part by forced labor falls under this definition,” the statement emphasizes.
International recognition
Thiago Romero, a professor of international law at Ibmec-SP, stresses the distinction between two factors “that the US narrative conflates.”
“There is a legal distinction between combating forced labor within one’s own territory and blocking at customs the entry of imported products manufactured using forced labor in another country,” the professor explained.
He noted that Brazil is internationally recognized for combating forced labor domestically.
“This is the understanding of the ILO itself, which for decades has regarded the Brazilian model for combating slave-like labor as one of the best practices in the world,” Romero added.
The professor stressed that Brazil has a “very solid legal framework.” He cites Article 149 of the Penal Code, which criminalizes subjecting a person to a slave-like condition, with a broad definition that includes exhausting working hours and degrading conditions.
“It is even more advanced than the frameworks of many developed countries,” he pointed out.
Romero added that the Ministry of Labor’s Mobile Inspection Teams have been operating since 1995. According to the Observatory for the Eradication of Slave Labor and Human Trafficking, nearly 66,000 people have been rescued from slave-like conditions.
The professor also mentioned the so-called “blacklist,” a registry of Brazilian employers found to have used forced labor.
“It is a transparency tool that the private sector itself uses to cut business ties and credit relationships with violators - a mechanism that the ILO recommends as a model,” he stated.
The current version of the “dirty list,” released by the Ministry of Labor and Employment in April, includes 568 companies. Some employers appear more than once because they have been held liable in different enforcement actions or at different locations. As the list is updated regularly, names may be removed.
“Brazil even monitors forced labor in the supply chains of foreign companies operating on Brazilian soil,” Romero pointed out.
Another tool mentioned by the Ibmec expert is the National Pact for the Eradication of Slave Labor, which brings together major companies and civil society organizations.
USTR
The professor explained that the USTR relies on a technical loophole to target Brazil.
“The American criticism has a genuine ‘technical’ basis. When the United States claims that Brazil has a problem with slave labor, it is referring to the fact that Brazil lacks a specific customs mechanism to prohibit imports of goods produced using forced labor abroad, as exists in the United States,” he explained.
In the United States, Section 307 of the Tariff Act, in force since 1930, prohibits the importation of any goods produced, in whole or in part, using forced labor.
Thiago Romero explains that in 2021, the legislation was updated to stipulate that any product originating from China’s Xinjiang region would be presumed to have been produced using forced labor and would be barred from entering the country.
The European Union approved a similar measure in 2024, which is set to take effect in 2027, the expert said.
In his view, acknowledging that Brazil lacks a legal instrument to block goods at the border produced using forced labor does not mean that Brazil is failing.
“What Brazil lacks is an import-blocking mechanism modeled on the US system. It is a gap in the legal framework, not a failure of policy,” the professor stated.
For Romero, when the US government demands that 60 economies adopt American regulatory standards under the threat of tariffs, this amounts to “exporting its own legislation.”
“When the entire world is subject to the same tariff under the same rationale, it becomes clear that this measure is driven not by forced labor, but rather by trade policy,” the professor concluded.
Bill before Congress
Bill 2,799/2015 has been pending before the Congress for nearly 11 years; it aims to establish a mechanism to prohibit the importation and sale of products made using child labor, forced labor, or compulsory labor.
The bill is under consideration in the House of Representatives; it was approved by committees in 2025 and 2026, but lawmakers have yet to reach a final decision.
Jean Menezes de Aguiar, a lawyer and professor at the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV), believes that the fact that the bill has not yet become law cannot be used by the White House as a reason to classify Brazil as a country that does not combat forced labor.
“Absolutely not. Every country faces bureaucratic hurdles, and the US legislature is slow as well,” he added.
Menezes de Aguiar describes the US pressure as “typically political and electoral.” “They know that this issue is very well regulated in our Constitution, and Brazil does not compromise on it.”
The lawyer draws attention to Article 243 of the Brazilian Constitution, which stipulates that properties where illegal crops of psychotropic plants are found or where slave labor is used, as defined by law, shall be expropriated and allocated to agrarian reform and low-income housing programs, without compensation to the owner. “In civil law, there is no greater penalty than the expropriation of property under the capitalist model,” Aguiar noted.
“Based solely on Article 243 of the Constitution, we can already be certain that the country is fully committed to eradicating slave-like labor and other conditions analogous to it,” he emphasized.
According to the lawyer and FGV professor, to restrict imports of goods produced with forced labor, it is enough for the country to have information about the origin of the illegal labor.
“Once this information is public and well-known, the country can take steps to prevent the product from entering its market and ensure that it does not reach us,” Aguiar concluded.
