Petróleo a $100 mais tarifa de 12,5%: Brasil preso entre duas crises externas.

Oil above US$100 per barrel and a new 12.5% American surtax taking effect simultaneously define a day on which Brazil found itself squeezed between two large external forces — and the government's response revealed, in equal measure, the limits of its fiscal room for maneuver.

Brent crude closed Thursday's session at US$100.69, up 7%, its highest level since May, driven by the escalating conflict between the United States and Iran and by Houthi attacks on Saudi tankers in the Red Sea. The tightening of flows through the Strait of Hormuz reignited the geopolitical risk premium with an intensity markets had not priced in for months. In Brazil, that shock produced two simultaneous and contradictory effects: oil company shares closed higher, with Petrobras benefiting directly from the commodity's appreciation, while the dollar rose 0.62% to R$5.084, and the Ibovespa retreated, pressured by global risk aversion. It's a split that neatly captures Brazil's ambiguous position in the new geopolitics of oil — a relevant exporter that profits from elevated prices, but an economy open enough to feel the squeeze on import costs and on international market sentiment.

The escalation of the conflict had a direct and immediate consequence for the public accounts. The R$0.44-per-liter gasoline subsidy, created in May with a two-month term and which the economic team was studying ending in July precisely because a deal between Washington and Tehran had pushed Brent down to around US$70, had to be extended for another 30 days. Finance Minister Dario Durigan signed the order on Thursday, justifying the decision by the surge in the price of the barrel. The fiscal logic presented is that the additional revenue generated by more expensive oil finances the subsidy — an argument with short-term coherence, but one that collides with the consolidation narrative Durigan himself sustains on other fronts. On the same day, the minister said in an interview that a potential Lula 4 government will have to cut mandatory spending and tackle tax benefits to stabilize the debt. The tension between what is said and what is done has rarely been so exposed in a single day.

That contradiction deepens when set against the broader fiscal backdrop. The IMF published its Article IV report on Brazil on Thursday, in an unusually constructive tone — the Fund acknowledged the economy's "remarkable resilience," praised Pix, and assessed that the impact of American tariffs on GDP is likely to be modest. Analysts writing in Folha de S.Paulo note that the release of the IMF report no longer triggers the anxiety of past eras, a sign of how much the country has moved up. But the Fund also urgently recommended that the Central Bank be granted financial and budgetary autonomy — an institutional weakness that remains unresolved. In parallel, the Senate's Independent Fiscal Institution identified perceptible deterioration in the financial health of a relevant share of federal state-owned enterprises since 2018, including Correios, which posted negative operating cash flow of R$692 million in 2025. The IFI further estimates that the Propag program could reduce federal revenues by R$190.7 billion over 30 years — a long-term fiscal liability that the 2026 electoral debate has treated with notable discretion.

Onto this already loaded domestic scenario landed the day's second major external force: confirmation that the United States will apply an additional 12.5% tariff on Brazilian products starting Friday, based on Section 301 of American trade law, on the grounds of failures in combating imports of goods produced with forced labor. The measure hits 60 countries, but its effects on Brazil are particularly severe because they add to the 25% surtax announced the previous week — producing a cumulative rate of 37.5% for sectors such as footwear, machinery, parts, and chemicals. According to Amcham Brasil, the new tariff affects roughly US$12.5 billion in annual exports, of which US$10.7 billion were already subject to the previous surtax. Industry Minister Márcio Elias Rosa confirmed the cumulative nature of the taxation.

The Lula government responded on multiple fronts, but without being able to mask the scarcity of immediate alternatives. The president stated that Brazil will not walk away from the negotiating table. Durigan characterized the new tariff as a "mere expedient" to replace the 10% surtax struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court — a legally plausible argument, but one that does not ease the commercial impact. The government announced R$18.5 billion in credit lines and support for affected companies, and the CMN regulated a R$10 billion line for the purchase of agricultural machinery, announced in April by Vice President Geraldo Alckmin. The timber sector, heavily dependent on the American market, said it has no plan B. For economists such as Luis Otávio Leal of G5 Partners, the additional 12.5% tariff is "less bad" than the previous one because Brazil had already lost competitiveness, and all 60 affected countries are in the same boat — an assessment that offers little practical consolation to companies now stacking surtaxes approaching 40%.

Historian Niall Ferguson, on a panel at the Expert XP conference, was more direct: if the Middle East conflict drags on, Brazil — with one of the highest real interest rates in the world — may be on the path to a new Latin American debt crisis. JPMorgan, in turn, warned in a report that the positive foreign flow recorded in July on B3 — R$4.2 billion through the 21st — is transitory. The Ibovespa is down 11% from its April all-time high, with the index's average P/E receding from 11x to 8.4x. Managers at Ibiúna, Encore, and Guepardo called the moment one of "extreme pessimism" and flagged opportunities in names such as SmartFit, Nubank, Ultra, and Minha Casa, Minha Vida homebuilders — but market sentiment depends, to a large extent, on variables Brasília does not control.

On the immediate agenda, investors will follow the remarks of Central Bank President Gabriel Galípolo at Expert XP on Friday, looking for signals on the inflationary impact of elevated oil and a pressured exchange rate on monetary policy. Preliminary July U.S. PMI data will also be released — and any reading suggesting an acceleration of U.S. interest rates could aggravate the outflow picture from emerging markets. The trajectory of the conflict in the Mid