Brazil was not the only country targeted for political reasons. India faces a comparable rate for buying Russian oil. Mr Trump warned Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, that recognising a Palestinian state would make trade negotiations “very hard”.

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.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke by phone on Thursday, their offices said, discussing a broad range of topics that included tariffs imposed by the United States on goods from both countries.