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India Today
3 days ago
- Business
- India Today
Lula unveils $5.5 billion plan to shield Brazil exporters from Trump's tariffs
Brazilian President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva on Wednesday announced a sweeping $5.5 billion credit package to help exporters weather a 50% tariff imposed by US President Donald Trump on several products from the South American programme, called Sovereign Brazil, offers 30 billion reais ($5.5 billion) in credit along with tax relief and insurance support. Lula said the plan was a 'first step' and vowed that Brazil would not be cowed by Washington's move, which he called cannot be scared, nervous and anxious when there is a crisis,' Lula told an audience that included congressional leaders. "A crisis is for us to create new things. In this case, what is unpleasant is that the reasons given to impose sanctions against Brazil do not exist.' The plan includes postponing tax payments to companies hit by the tariffs, granting 5 billion reais in tax credits to small and medium-sized businesses until the end of 2026, expanding insurance for cancelled orders and encouraging public purchases of goods blocked from the US leaders' presence at the ceremony was notable as the first such show of unity in months and seen as a sign of growing political support for Lula in the face of Trump's trade has linked the steep tariffs to the legal troubles of his ally, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is under house said Brazil would keep defending its exporters while finding new markets. 'We are not going to sit and cry about what happened,' he said. 'We will turn this challenge into an opportunity.'- EndsWith inputs from Associated Press
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Business Standard
04-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Brazil's President Lula signs law to expand affirmative action policies
Brazil's President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva on Tuesday signed a new law to expand the country's affirmative action policies, increasing the quota for government jobs reserved for Blacks from 20 per cent to 30 per cent and adding Indigenous people and descendants of Afro-Brazilian enslaved people as beneficiaries. The changes apply to candidates applying for permanent and public employment positions across Brazil's federal administration, agencies, public foundations, public companies and state-run mixed-capital companies. As approved by Congress, the quota will be revised in 2035. "It is important to allow this country for one day to have a society reflected in its public offices, in the Prosecutors' Office, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in the Attorney-General's Office, in the Internal Revenue Service, everywhere," Lula said at the presidential palace in the capital, Brasilia. "We still have few women, few Black people, almost no Indigenous people." Brazil's first law on racial quotas for government jobs was approved in 2014 by then President Dilma Rousseff, and it extended to public administration positions an affirmative action policy that was in place for access to state-run universities. Brazil's government said in a statement that Blacks and mixed-race people held 25 per cent of top government jobs in 2014, a figure that rose to 36 per cent in 2024. "Still, Black people are under-represented in the public service and hold lower-wage positions," the government added. Management and Innovation Minister Esther Dweck said the new law was needed due to a low number of new government jobs being opened for candidates in the last decade, when the previous quota was in place. "We could not reverse the scenario of low representation (for minorities) in the public service," Dweck said in a speech Tuesday. Brazil's government said 55 per cent of the country's population is made up of Black or mixed-race people. It added that more than 70 per cent of Brazilians living below the poverty line are also Black or mixed race, while only 1 per cent of people from those ethnicities are in leadership positions in the private sector.
