Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has challenged Washington's justification for imposing 25% tariffs on Brazilian goods, arguing that the United States — not Brazil — has run a bilateral trade surplus, claiming the US advantage reached $415 billion over the past 15 years. Lula made the remarks at a university inauguration in Catalão, recalling that he and President Donald Trump had agreed in early May to a 30-day window for negotiations, but that three rounds of talks had so far produced no agreement. The tariff dispute, launched under a US Section 301 trade investigation, remains unresolved ahead of a mid-July deadline, with the broader relationship complicated by Trump's earlier linkage of tariff threats to the trial and conviction of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro for attempting a coup.