WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump last week imposed import taxes of 50 percent on Brazil, citing the country’s treatment of its former president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Trump avoided his standard form letter with Brazil, specifically tying his tariffs to the trial of Bolsonaro, who is charged with trying to overturn his 2022 election loss.

Trump has described Bolsonaro as a friend and hosted the former Brazilian president at his Mar-a-Lago resort when both were in power in 2020.

“This Trial should not be taking place,” Trump wrote in the letter posted on Truth Social. “It is a Witch Hunt that should end IMMEDIATELY!”

Lula responded in a statement that said Trump’s tariffs would trigger the country’s economic reciprocity law, which allows trade, investment and intellectual property agreements to be suspended against countries that harm Brazil’s competitiveness.

He noted that the United States has had a trade surplus of more than $410 billion with Brazil over the past 15 years.

“Brazil is a sovereign country with independent institutions that will not accept being taken for granted by anyone,” Lula said.

In addition to oil, Brazil sells orange juice, coffee, iron and steel to the U.S., among other products. The U.S. ran a $6.8 billion trade surplus with Brazil last year, according to the Census Bureau.

Trump also sent letters last week to the leaders of seven other nations. None of them — the Philippines, Brunei, Moldova, Algeria, Libya, Iraq and Sri Lanka — is a major industrial rival to the United States.

The Trump administration is promising that the taxes on imports will lower trade imbalances, offset some of the cost of the tax cuts he signed into law last week and encourage factory jobs to return to the United States.

Trump initially announced his broad tariffs by declaring an economic emergency, arguing under a 1977 law that the U.S. was at risk because of persistent trade imbalances.

Trump, during a White House meeting with African leaders, talked up trade as a diplomatic tool.

Trade, he said, “seems to be a foundation” for him to settle disputes between India and Pakistan, as well as Kosovo and Serbia.

“You guys are going to fight, we’re not going to trade,” Trump said. “And we seem to be quite successful in doing that.”

Trump said the tariff rates in his letters were based on “common sense” and trade imbalances, even though the Brazil letter indicated otherwise.

Trump suggested he had not thought of penalizing the countries whose leaders were meeting with him in the Oval Office — Liberia, Senegal, Gabon, Mauritania and Guinea-Bissau — as “these are friends of mine now.”

Countries are not complaining about the rates outlined in his letters, he said, even though those tariffs have been generally close to the ones announced April 2.

“We really haven’t had too many complaints because I’m keeping them at a very low number, very conservative as you would say,” Trump said.

Officials for the European Union, a major trade partner and source of Trump’s ire on trade, last week said that they are not expecting to receive a letter from Trump listing tariff rates.

The president started the process of announcing tariff rates on June 30 by hitting trading partners Japan and South Korea with import taxes of 25 percent.

According to Trump’s letters, imports from Libya, Iraq, Algeria and Sri Lanka would be taxed at 30 percent, those from Moldova and Brunei at 25 percent and those from the Philippines at 20 percent. The tariffs would start Aug. 1.

The Philippine government’s reaction has been relatively tame. Its ambassador in Washington, Jose Manuel Romualdez, said the country will seek new negotiations with the U.S. to lower the 20 percent tariff.

The Census Bureau reported that last year the U.S. ran a trade imbalance on goods of $1.4 billion with Algeria, $5.9 billion with Iraq, $900 million with Libya, $4.9 billion with the Philippines, $2.6 billion with Sri Lanka, $111 million with Brunei and $85 million with Moldova.

The imbalance represents the difference between what the U.S. exported to those countries and what it imported.

The letters were posted on Truth Social after the expiration of a 90-day negotiating period with a baseline levy of 10 percent. Trump is giving countries more time to negotiate with his Aug. 1 deadline, but he has insisted there will be no extensions for the countries that receive letters. The president threatened additional tariffs on any country that attempts to retaliate.

Trump also objected to Brazil’s Supreme Court fining of social media companies, saying the temporary blocking last year amounted to “SECRET and UNLAWFUL Censorship Orders.”

Trump said he is launching an investigation as a result under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which applies to countries with trade practices that are deemed unfair to American companies.

Among the companies the Supreme Court fined was X, which was not mentioned specifically in Trump’s letter. Trump also owns a social media company, Truth Social.

“In Brazil, freedom of speech is not mistaken by aggression or violent behavior,” Lula said in his statement. “To operate in our country, every company, local or foreign, must be subjected to Brazilian legislation.”

The tariffs starting Aug. 1 would be an increase from the 10 percent rate that Trump levied on Brazil as part of his April 2 “Liberation Day” announcement.

Bolsonaro, meanwhile, testified before the country’s Supreme Court in June over the alleged plot to remain in power after his 2022 election loss. Judges will hear from 26 other defendants in the coming months, and legal analysts say a decision could come as early as September.

The country’s electoral authorities have already barred Bolsonaro from running for office until 2030.

The former president did not comment about Trump’s tariff decision on his social media channels, but wrote that he is being politically persecuted.