Pix, não aço: Washington's tariff threat targets Brazil's payment system instead.

The day that was supposed to be dominated by tariff uncertainty ended up being marked by an unexpected market relief — and by a simultaneous escalation of pressures that make that relief fragile and possibly temporary.

The June U.S. CPI came in below expectations on Tuesday, knocking the dollar down 1.09% against the real, which closed at R$5.073 — its strongest level in weeks. The Ibovespa advanced in sympathy, also lifted by a 5.2% jump in Natura shares, which surprised the market positively by pre-announcing second-quarter results, a transparency play that compensated, at least for today, for revenue coming in 6% below consensus. This Wednesday, however, the mood is tenser: the United States resumed strikes on Iran overnight, Brent crude remains above US$85 a barrel, and the deadline for the U.S. government to announce new tariffs on Brazilian goods expires today — meaning yesterday's currency reprieve may prove ephemeral before markets close.

The tariff threat is the gravitational force around which all this week's other storylines orbit. According to a survey by São Paulo Negócios, a 25% surcharge — the recommendation the U.S. Trade Representative's Office (USTR) has already made public — would hit 93% of São Paulo's export basket to the U.S., covering 570 product groups. Brazil, according to Folha de S.Paulo, would rank as the second country facing the highest American tariffs, trailing only economies deliberately isolated by Washington. Trade representative Jamieson Greer gave no hints of possible exceptions in yesterday's meeting with teams from the Ministry of Development, Itamaraty, and the presidential advisory staff — the fifth high-level meeting since May, all without concrete results.

What makes the trade crisis even more complex is its nature. The main American grievance isn't about steel, soy, or manufactured goods — it's about Pix. The Central Bank's instant payment system, which processes more than 60 billion transactions a year and is used by more than 150 million Brazilians, is accused by the White House of competing unfairly with Visa and Mastercard, private American operators. The Lula government flatly refuses to negotiate Pix or ethanol — the two central items on the American demand list — and rules out an agreement before today's announcement. Ministers will bring to the president a proposal for tariff reciprocity should the surcharge be confirmed, although Finance Minister Dario Durigan struck a cautious tone, signaling that support measures for the affected sectors would come before retaliation. Ironically, 70% of American businesspeople who took part in the USTR public hearing spoke out against the surcharge, citing higher costs for U.S. consumers and companies and the collateral benefit the measure would hand to China.

The war in Iran — whose latest developments pushed oil higher — was already producing concrete damage in Brazil's production chain even before today's announcement. Mosaic, the U.S.-based multinational fertilizer producer, announced the shutdown or reduction of seven of its 15 Brazilian units due to the rising cost of sulfur, a critical input affected by the conflict. The impact arrives at a moment when Brazil is already recording the smallest wheat-planted area in nine years — a setback that has buried the dream of self-sufficiency that seemed within reach in 2022 — and when iron ore futures have risen on the combination of Middle East tensions and confirmation of a BHP strike at Port Hedland, in Australia. Cutting the other way, Brazil's soybean exports to China hit an all-time June record, according to customs data compiled by Reuters, reinforcing the trade-diversification logic that the private sector is already putting into practice, even as Brasília is still debating the theory.

On the domestic front, the government took measures that speak both to inflationary pressure and to the state of public accounts. The decision to raise the anhydrous ethanol content in gasoline from 30% to 32% — valid for 180 days and renewable — was presented as a price-containment tool in the face of the oil rally triggered by the war in Iran. Fuel-market specialists were divided on the measure, and Folha de S.Paulo revealed that the government's assessment did not include durability tests for the 4.7 million vehicles running exclusively on gasoline in the country. The government also decided to keep the gasoline subsidy in place "at least for this week," according to reporting by Valor Econômico — an additional fiscal cost in a week in which the pension outlook deteriorated further.

The Senate approved on Tuesday, by 73 votes to just 1, the constitutional amendment granting special retirement rights to community health and endemic-disease agents, a defeat the Executive could not head off despite its political maneuvering. The estimated fiscal impact is R$27 billion, and the government is considering an appeal to the Supreme Court. The approval comes in a context in which the dividend tax — the central bet of last year's fiscal package — has collected just R$1.54 billion through May, equivalent to a paltry 5.13% of the R$29.9 billion projected for 2026. The explanation lies partly in a rational market response: for the first time since the historical series began, Interest on Own Capital (JCP) surpassed dividends in shareholder payouts by companies listed on B3, accounting for 54.3% of the R$126.7 billion paid out in the first half — evidence that companies have found a legal way around the new tax.

The pressure on household incomes remains intense. The prato feito — the informal inflation gauge for working-class Brazilians — is 7.2% more expensive since January, reaching R$31.90 in June, according to the Índice Prato Feito. The FGV survey recorded in June the lowest share of consumers rating their income as sufficient in 11 months: just 69.1%, with food cited by 75% of respondents as the largest expense. In the government bond market, stress in NTN-Bs has reached levels not seen since the Dilma administration, with average real yields at 7.6% a year — high returns, yet insufficient to attract buyers in the volume needed to roll over the debt. Credit managers interviewed by Brazil Journal describe the market as "dysfunctional," with no visible marginal buyer.

The agenda for the coming hours concentrates the biggest risks: Washington's tariff announcement, the release of the U.S. June PPI and the Federal Reserve's Beige Book, plus the Senate confirmation hearing of Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. On the domestic side, IBGE releases May services sector volume data.