Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed an executive order eliminating federal taxes on foreign purchases worth up to $50, reversing course on an unpopular levy as he gears up for an October re-election bid where polls show him tied in a runoff against Senator Flavio Bolsonaro. The move is expected to lower costs on cross-border e-commerce platforms widely used by lower-income Brazilians including Alibaba’s AliExpress, Sea-owned Shopee, and Shein, with Finance Ministry executive secretary Rogerio Ceron saying the change will benefit “lower-income population that relies heavily on these platforms.” The government had originally introduced the tax arguing that foreign platforms were selling products without facing the same tax burden as Brazilian companies, with Vice President Geraldo Alckmin previously saying it helped boost domestic industry competitiveness, and the reversal came the same day the government backed off a rule restricting subsidized public loans for producers with deforested land.
