'Absurd': Economist unleashes on Trump for 'imposing a tax on Americans' to punish ally

President Donald Trump's threat to hit Brazil with a 50% tariff on all imported goods due to a political dispute will likely hurt everyday Americans far more than the Brazilian government, according to one economist.

Trump sent a letter earlier this week to Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula de Silva, informing him that the United States would be officially rolling out the new tariffs in response to the prosecution of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Trump insisted that prosecutors drop the charges against Bolsonaro "immediately" if it hopes to avoid the tariff. Brazilian authorities have charged Bolsonaro with staging a coup in an attempt to remain in power on January 8, 2023 after losing his reelection bid. Bolsonaro fled to Trump's adopted home state of Florida after his election loss, but returned to Brazil in March of 2023.

During a Thursday segment on MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," host Nicolle Wallace asked University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers his thoughts on Trump's threats. The economist to quip that Trump was going to "put the coup in Cupertino" and that Starbucks customers should be sure to keep an eye out for the "insurrection infusion fee."

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"So the most important part of this: Yes, he's meddling in Brazilian politics by imposing a tax on Americans," Wolfers said. "You and i are going to be paying higher taxes at Starbucks, on juice, on all the things that we import from Brazil — and Brazil is a very important trading partner — in order to help the leader of a failed coup get off the hook."

Wolfers went on to note the "absurdity" of Trump's latest tariff, reminding viewers that it was being imposed under a "national emergency" that Trump declared in order to announce tariffs unilaterally without Congressional input. He lamented that in the case of Brazil, the supposed "emergency" was "that the leader of a failed coup in another country might go to jail" and that "another country might exercise its sovereign rights."

"This is utterly absurd. The idea that the courts haven't intervened and shut all this down is crazy," he said. "Let me show the absurdity in another way: The key argument for tariffs is so that we can make stuff at home. Good luck growing coffee in the United States! I mean, my friends in Hawaii tell me there's seven and a half plants and there's six people and a goat who were farming coffee."

Unlike other countries Trump has subjected to tariffs, the U.S. does not have a trade deficit with Brazil but a trade surplus, meaning that the South American G20 country buys more from the U.S. than the U.S. does from Brazil. However, the U.S. does import a significant amount of grocery items — like meat, produce and coffee — from Brazil.

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Watch the video of Wolfers' comments below, or by clicking this link.

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