Trump turned environmentalist to slap new tariffs on Brazil, so why are deforestation rates down?

Brazilian officials on Thursday announced a sharp drop in deforestation rates, pushing back on one of the arguments that the Trump administration used last week to justify additional tariffs on the South American country. In May, Amazon deforestation was 61.4% lower than in the same month in 2025, according to officials from the National Institute for Space Research, or INPE, and the Ministry of Environment. Still, 370 square kilometers (nearly 143 square miles) of the rainforest were cleared. Deforestation over the same period fell 12% in the Cerrado, a savanna in central Brazil that has long been under pressure from the powerful agribusiness sector. Environment Minister João Paulo Capobianco said that the figure is the lowest ever recorded for May, and that Brazil is on track to reach its lowest annual levels once the data is consolidated next semester. He said that the month typically sees higher deforestation, because it marks the start of the Amazon’s dry season. In the 10 months from August 2025 to May 2026, deforestation in the Amazon already fell by 37.5%, compared with the same previous period. On June 2, the Trump administration proposed 25% tariffs on imports from Brazil, saying that the world’s 10th-biggest economy engages in trade practices that are “unreasonable” and that “burden or restrict U.S. commerce.” The announcement came after an investigation by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative that accused Brazil of illegal deforestation and unfair tariffs of its own, among other things. Capobianco said that the deforestation figures “debunk the unfair and unfounded accusation by the United States, which cited deforestation to justify imposing tariffs.” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva nodded as he listened to the remarks. Lula said that the Trump administration lied when they first imposed additional tariffs on Brazil last year, saying that the U.S. had a trade deficit. “And now they raised questions about deforestation. They don’t understand t