The Briefing:
- Brazil formally pressed for the removal of all three layers of U.S. duties — Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, the 12.5% forced-labor levy, and the 25% Section 301 unfair-practices tariff — when Trade Minister Márcio Elias Rosa met U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on the sidelines of the G20 Trade Ministerial in Milwaukee on September 30.
- The two countries agreed to form a bilateral working group and pledged to move swiftly toward a mutually acceptable framework; Washington committed to tabling a proposal covering both tariff and non-tariff issues within the coming weeks.
- Rosa confirmed that Greer did not raise the prospect of 100% secondary tariffs on Brazil's purchases of Russian petroleum products — a provision embedded in new U.S. sanctions legislation that Brasília had been tracking closely ahead of the Milwaukee sessions.
Brazil arrived in Milwaukee without a deal and left without one — but with something that could prove equally consequential: a formalized working group, a U.S. commitment to submit a comprehensive trade proposal within weeks, and a notable absence of new threats over Russian energy purchases. The outcome lands as Brazil's first-round presidential vote approaches on October 4, leaving Brasília to show exporters absorbing up to 37.5% in combined U.S. tariffs that diplomacy is moving, even if relief is not yet in sight.
What Was Actually Agreed in Milwaukee
Brazilian Trade Minister Márcio Elias Rosa and Foreign Affairs Minister Mauro Vieira traveled to Wisconsin to meet with USTR Greer on the sidelines of the G20 Trade Ministerial, a session that ran from September 29 through October 1. It was the first in-person meeting between the two governments' trade officials since a second wave of U.S. tariff measures hit Brazilian goods in July — and came weeks after an August 31 virtual exchange between Rosa and Greer that had followed the August 21 phone call between Presidents Lula and Trump.
The Milwaukee session produced architecture rather than an agreement. The two governments will formalize a working group to define the scope of a potential trade arrangement covering tariff and non-tariff barriers, quotas, and safeguards. Rosa told reporters afterward that Washington would submit its own conceptual proposal within weeks, and that Greer had signaled genuine interest in reaching a deal. Brasília, for its part, confirmed it would continue holding the Economic Reciprocity Law in reserve — legislation that authorizes Brazil to restrict U.S. imports or suspend patent protections — for as long as talks proceed in good faith.
Analysts had set a cautious bar. The Trump administration's well-documented preference for bilateral structures over multilateral commitments, on full display in Milwaukee, left most observers expecting process rather than substance from the ministerial — and that is precisely what the Brazil-U.S. bilateral produced.
Brazil's Three-Front Demand
What Brasília put on the table in Milwaukee goes beyond earlier negotiating rounds. According to Reuters, Brazil is seeking the complete elimination of all three tariff layers: Section 232 duties on steel and aluminum imports, the 12.5% levy tied to U.S. allegations that Brazil lacks adequate mechanisms to screen out goods produced with forced labor, and the 25% Section 301 tariff that the U.S. imposed after concluding that Brazil engages in unfair commercial practices — a determination that cited the country's Pix instant-payment architecture, ethanol market restrictions, and deforestation embedded in timber supply chains.
Rosa has framed the demand as a matter of principle, not merely economics. The tariffs, he has argued consistently, represent unilateral measures that run contrary to multilateral trade rules — a position Brasília backed with formal action when it filed for WTO dispute consultations on July 27, challenging both Section 301 measures. Pursuing the legal and bilateral tracks simultaneously has been Brasília's core strategy throughout: contest the measures in Geneva while negotiating them directly with Washington.
Rosa told journalists after the session that he believes a deal is achievable — and soon. "Full tariff reduction" was the explicit goal he articulated, the broadest demand Brazil has placed on the table in any round of these negotiations.
The Critical Minerals Gambit
The most strategically significant new element to surface in Milwaukee was Brazil's offer to fold its critical minerals and rare earth reserves into a broader bilateral trade framework — on terms that Washington will need to accept before access becomes possible.
Rosa confirmed that mineral access could enter the working group's agenda, but made clear that any partner — the United States included — would need to commit to value-added processing on Brazilian soil rather than extracting and shipping raw ore. The position tracks directly with what President Lula articulated during his early-May White House visit, when he told Trump that all countries — American, Chinese, European — were welcome to participate in Brazil's mineral sector under those same processing conditions.
The insistence on domestic value-added production carries dual logic. Economically, it positions Brazil to capture refining and manufacturing revenue rather than merely selling unprocessed ore. Politically, accepting raw-ore exports on preferential terms during an election campaign would hand opposition candidate Flávio Bolsonaro a sovereignty argument in the final days before the October 4 first round — a risk the Lula government has no interest in taking.
What the Silence on Russian Oil Means
One signal from Milwaukee received less immediate attention than the working-group announcement but carries real weight for Brazilian commerce: Greer made no mention of the potential 100% secondary tariffs on purchases of Russian petroleum products that the United States has been building into its energy sanctions architecture. The Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, which cleared the Senate 86-11 in August and was moving through the House as of late September, authorizes the president to impose tariffs of up to 100% on the five largest importers of Russian crude oil and gas by volume. Brazil is not among the five countries currently named in the Senate version — China, India, Slovakia, Hungary, and Azerbaijan hold those positions — but Brasília had been monitoring House amendment proceedings closely for any expansion of the bill's scope.
Brazil has ranked among the largest buyers of Russian clean petroleum products since European Union sanctions diverted Moscow's energy flows after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and the country has faced growing pressure to reduce that dependence. The fact that Greer chose not to introduce the energy issue into an already complex trade conversation may reflect Washington's interest in keeping the bilateral negotiation contained — or simply a tactical decision to address energy and tariff disputes on separate timetables.
For Brazilian businesses and diaspora networks concentrated in South Florida and Massachusetts — communities that track these bilateral dynamics for their direct effect on import costs and remittance flows — the absence of any new energy-related escalation was the closest thing to a concrete win that Milwaukee produced.
The Vote, the Runoff, and What Washington Is Watching
Both governments are acutely aware that whatever framework Milwaukee established will be inherited by whoever emerges from Brazil's electoral process. The first round takes place October 4, with a runoff on October 25 expected if no candidate crosses the 50% threshold — an outcome that virtually all late-September polls consider near-certain. AtlasIntel's most recent survey, conducted September 17-22, shows Lula and Flávio Bolsonaro in a statistical dead heat in the likely runoff — 47.7% to 47.4%. A Quaest survey published in mid-August had shown Lula ahead at 43% against Bolsonaro's 40% in a simulated runoff, but subsequent rounds of polling have effectively erased that margin.
If Lula wins and consolidates a second term, the Milwaukee working group becomes his administration's primary negotiating table, and the open question becomes whether Washington will separate trade from its broader political sympathy for the Bolsonaro camp. If Flávio Bolsonaro prevails, the same framework could be reactivated under dramatically different political conditions — chemistry that Trump's team has openly signaled would be more amenable to Washington's preferences.
The Atlantic Council noted this week that the congressional composition being decided on October 4 could matter as much as the presidency itself — a reminder that Brazilian trade policy over the next four years will be shaped by multiple institutions, not only by whoever occupies the Palácio do Planalto. For the 68,000 Brazilians registered to vote in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine — nearly double the number who registered in 2022 — the trade war and the ballot have never been separate storylines. The U.S. proposal arriving "in the coming weeks" will land after the votes are counted, and its terms will tell both governments exactly how Washington is reading what the result means.
