The order entails an additional 40% tariff on the 10% duties already being levied, but energy products would be exempt.

The president typically ties his tariffs to trade policy, but he hit Brazilian products with the highest rate of any country's goods largely due to politics.

Earlier, the US President had threatened to impose tariffs on July 9 in a letter to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. But the legal basis of that threat was an earlier executive order premised on trade imbalances being a threat to the US economy.