Brasilia (AFP)
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said Friday that his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump had given up imposing tariffs on Brazilian steel and aluminum after a telephone conversation between the two leaders.
Donald Trump "was convinced by my arguments and decided (...) that our steel and aluminum would not be overtaxed," said the Brazilian president in a video posted on his Facebook account.
Donald Trump, who announced on December 2 these sanctions also affecting Argentina because of a "massive devaluation" of the currencies of these two states, for his part spoke on Twitter on Friday of a "great discussion" with Mr. Bolsonaro.
"The relationship between the United States and Brazil has never been stronger," added the White House occupier in his tweet.
"I recently received a call from Mr. Donald Trump (...) We had a conversation of about 15 minutes with the cordiality and the respect due between two heads of state," said Mr. Bolsonaro in Friday the video.
Referring to Donald Trump's renunciation of imposing these taxes, Mr. Bolsonaro, who has denied in recent days that Brazil does not manipulate his currency, said: "The United States is our great partner we have a lot in common . The personal friendship the sympathy that I feel for him and that he has for me is even stronger ".
In March 2018, Donald Trump announced the imposition of customs duties of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum of many states of the world before agreeing a few months later to remove them for Argentina and Brazil, as well as for other countries.
In exchange for this exemption, Brazil agreed to establish export quotas.
In 2018, the United States imported more than 3.98 million tonnes of steel from Brazil, worth nearly $ 2.5 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
© 2019 AFP