U.S. President Joe Biden has committed to reconsidering the tariffs imposed on Brazilian steel during his meeting with Brazilian politician, Jair Bolsonaro, two Brazilian official sources confirm, Reuters reported.
"We have had signs that this issue must be addressed. The truth is that the one who is benefiting from this tariff now is Russia," a Brazilian source said. "The expectation is that this will be resolved quickly."
The promise, given at the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, was that current tariff terms are expected to change in the next upcoming months.
"President Biden said he had no details on the issue right now, but would check in and the matter would be taken up with the technical teams of the two countries as soon as possible," one of the sources said.
The discussion also unfolded during a private meeting between the two presidents, Brazilian chancellor Carlos Franca and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The quotas for Brazilian steel imports were established in 2018 under the Donald Trump administration, granting Brazil the right to export a portion of the product without taxes. The Brazilian government would now like to overturn the current terms and return to the previous policy, under which no taxes were involved.
“At current values, Brazil is entitled to export a quota of 3.5 million tons of steel without the tariff,” a Reuters report states. “According to sources Reuters spoke to, Brazil currently exports quantities close to the current quota to the United States, impeding the expansion of Brazilian business.”
Aco Brasil, a lobby group for steel producers, expects the revision of the quotas to occur this year, according to the group's chief executive Marco Polo de Mello Lopes.
Experts in the steelmaking industry have long awaited the evolution of the talks between the two officials in hopes of kickstarting negotiations to review the quotas.