Trump’s 50 Percent Tariff Threat: A Chance to Bolster Brazil’s Brand in Georgia?

Since he emerged on the scene in 2016, President Donald Trump has largely kept Brazil out of the U.S. trade crosshairs. 

For one, it’s one of few Latin American countries with which the U.S. has a goods surplus.

But also, a lack of fluency about the country in the U.S. means that attacking the country publicly might bring comparatively little domestic political utility. 

That calculus somehow changed for the U.S. president on July 10, when South America’s largest economy woke up to one of the White House’s signature letters threatening a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian goods coming into the United States. 

That same day in Atlanta, Global Atlanta organized the Samba to Strategy event on behalf of the Atlanta Global Studies Center, celebrating the Portuguese language and its importance for enhancing trade and investment ties with Brazil. 

For those quietly working for decades to build Brazil’s brand in Georgia, the sudden attention presented a conundrum: the prospect of negative trade impacts, but also, in a roundabout way, a chance to show their country’s importance.

More than 60 Brazilian companies call Georgia home, and while the state operates a trade and investment office in São Paulo, many longtime Brazil boosters feel their country takes a back seat to others in the local consciousness.

“For the last 30 years, that’s been our focus: to try to create this brand Brazil, which is very hard to do,” said Lucia Jennings, founder of the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce Southeast, an organizing partner in the event. 

And she doesn’t fault Georgia’s top officials or rank and file citizens: Brazilians also shoulder some of the blame for failing to celebrate their country and heritage locally, she said.

“When we get out of Brazil, the first thing we want to do is say, ‘I don’t want to be Brazilian,’” Ms. Jennings said. 

Rejane Guerreiro agreed, saying that her work as a Portuguese-speaking psychologist showed her how much Brazilians sought to assimilate rather than celebrate their identity. 

“It’s like they don’t trust our power, our expertise, everything we have to offer,” Ms. Guerreiro said. 

For that reason, she founded the Brazilian Professionals Abroad in New York, opening a chapter in Atlanta two years ago. But it’s sometimes been an uphill battle convening the community, she said.

That was not evident during the event, which grew into a vibrant celebration of Brazilian culture and Portuguese language featuring an academic panel, a guitar and samba performance from music educator Luiz “Pepe” Barcellos, and a deep-dive on the role of culture in building cross-border business ties. Minas Grill, based in Sandy Springs, provided Brazilian delectables from coxinhas to brigadeiros for the event, which was held at the conference facilities of the Consulate General of Brazil in Buckhead.

Danila Palmieri, founder of Connect Solutions, which helps Brazilian entrepreneurs solve business and human-resources challenges in the U.S., said that Georgia has only 6 percent of the Brazilian population in this country, in part because so few make it up past Florida. Orlando, home to Disney World, is now becoming known as “Orlandia” for its large concentration of Brazilians, she joked.

From a business perspective, this is more of a knowledge problem than a language barrier, she said, and it has changed dramatically for the better since Ms. Palmieri arrived 13 years ago. 

“I believe what happens is that people feel comfortable with Florida because of the weather, because of the distance, quick flights to Brazil, and also other Brazilians. Now, they are more aware of doing business in other states,” she said. 

MJV’s Leonardo Santos, another panelist, noted that his innovation and tech consultancy landed in Atlanta thanks to a key client — Coca-Cola Co. — but once settled here, MJV learned the city’s charms. 

“I think Atlanta and Georgia are the best state for business. If you look over the whole country, most of the companies are here, and then you are in the same time zone as Brazil. We can use our team in Brazil for deliverables, which is different than if we were based in California. There’s five hours of time difference, and that would be a big barrier for us.” 

The need to deepen understanding goes both ways, and U.S. investors face both cultural and bureaucratic hurdles, says Joe Farach, who runs the consultancy Revenue Igniter. 

The son of a Brazilian mother and a Cuban father, Mr. Farach spent much of his formative childhood in Brazil and speaks fluent Portuguese. Still, when setting up a factory for an Indian company in Brazil, everything — from permitting to hiring— took longer than planned. 

“The government’s complex, but even sometimes businesses are complex, so you have to go down there and be very flexible,” Mr. Farach said. 

Asked how to improve Georgians’ knowledge of Brazil, he said a lack of familiarity is somewhat natural — only 870,000 people in the U.S. speak Portuguese in the home, while more than 40 million speak Spanish. 

All the more reason, he says, for the Brazilian government and universities like Georgia Tech and Georgia State — the institutions underwriting the event — to boost instruction and study-abroad opportunities, though some academics in the audience noted the challenges of finding teachers and building out classes with the Trump administration slashing educational funding. 

One idea floated during the question-and-answer session: Create a consortium of Brazilian firms in the U.S. and Atlanta firms operating in Brazil to jointly fund some teaching positions. 

Mr. Santos noted that as artificial intelligence models are built out, Portuguese will have a certain inertia in the tech world, being the language of at least a quarter-billion people around the world. 

“I think it’s really important to bring Portuguese to the table,” he said. 

Ms. Palmieri, meanwhile, said companies are waking up as they employ more Brazilian professionals locally and find more opportunities in the Brazilian market. 

“I think we are going to learn something either for curiosity or need,” she said. “People are our best resource. Without them, without the teams, we cannot make anything.