Last week, Lula made a gesture toward heavy industry. His government imposed antidumping tariffs on Chinese steel and US resins, giving relief to CSN and Braskem.
The contradiction is clear: China is Brazil’s BRICS partner and a pillar of Lula’s multilateral rhetoric. Still, trade defence here means shielding industry against foreign rivals. Nothing unusual: China shields its own champions, while Trump raised steep tariffs against Brazil and interfered in the private sector by taking a stake in Intel to secure technological control. Protectionism is no longer the exception; it is the rule.
The doubt is whether this defence trench buys more than time. Brazil’s industrial base still suffers from high costs, low productivity and weak innovation. Tariffs can slow decline but cannot create competitiveness.
Expecting Brazil to play open-field while Washington and Beijing build walls would be naïve. Lula signals he will not hand over factories to foreign rivals. Trade defence is necessary; the risk, in a pre-election year, is that it becomes only a short trench in a long war.