Brazil will double down on its commitment to the Brics bloc, the Brazilian president’s top foreign policy adviser has said, a move that defies US President Donald Trump’s threats to impose punitive tariffs.

Trump has taken aim at Brazil twice this month. As the country hosted a summit for the 11-member Brics, he threatened a 10 per cent tariff against any nation “aligning themselves” with the “anti-American” bloc. Trump then pledged 50 per cent levies on Brazil and demanded it end the trial of hard-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, who is charged with plotting a coup.

But Celso Amorim, lead foreign affairs adviser to leftwing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, told the Financial Times those attacks “are reinforcing our relations with the Brics, because we want to have diversified relations and not depend on any one country”.