Brazil says Amazon deforestation fell 61.4% in May amid tariff fight
Brazil said Amazon deforestation in May fell 61.4%, a claim Brasília is using to counter Washington’s tariff pressure. The fight now turns on whether better forest numbers can blunt trade leverage.
Brazil’s latest forest data gave President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government a fresh rebuttal to Washington just as the Trump administration moved to raise economic pressure. Officials said Amazon deforestation in May was 61.4% lower than a year earlier, with 370 square kilometers, about 143 square miles, still cleared, while the Cerrado savanna saw a 12% year-over-year decline.
Environment Minister João Paulo Capobianco said the May total was the lowest ever recorded for that month and argued Brazil could be headed toward its lowest annual deforestation levels once the figures are fully consolidated. May is typically a harder month for the Amazon, he said, because it marks the start of the dry season, when fires and land clearing often intensify.
The Brazilian government also pointed to a wider trend, saying Amazon deforestation from August 2025 through May 2026 was down 37.5% from the same stretch a year earlier. Capobianco cast the data as a direct answer to the tariff dispute, saying the new figures “debunk the unfair and unfounded accusation” that deforestation justified the U.S. threat.
That dispute escalated after the Office of the United States Trade Representative issued a Section 301 notice on June 1 that proposed 25% tariffs on Brazilian imports. The notice cited what it called unreasonable Brazilian practices burdening U.S. commerce, including illegal deforestation, digital trade, payment services, tariffs, anti-corruption enforcement, intellectual property protection and ethanol market access. The tariff proposal could take effect as early as July 15, and comments are due July 1.
The Brazilian numbers are part of a broader pattern that Brasília says strengthens its case. The National Institute for Space Research said earlier in 2026 that Deter alerts fell 35% in the Amazon and 6% in the Cerrado from August 2025 through January 2026. MapBiomas said on May 27 that total deforestation in Brazil in 2025 fell 20.6% from 2024 and dropped below 1 million hectares for the first time since its 2019 series began.
Even so, the gains do not erase the scale of the damage. INPE said 2025 Amazon deforestation fell 11.08% from 2024, reaching its lowest level in 11 years, while Cerrado deforestation fell 11.49%. MapBiomas said the Cerrado remained the biome with the largest deforested area in 2025, underscoring how agribusiness pressure continues to reshape central Brazil.
With Brazil responsible for more than 60% of the Amazon biome, the numbers carry weight far beyond Brasília. The question now is whether cleaner deforestation metrics can translate into real diplomatic relief, or whether climate compliance has become another front in a larger trade war.
This article was produced by Prism’s automated news system from verified source data, official records, and press releases, then run through automated quality and moderation checks before publishing. The system is built and supervised by the people who set the standards it runs under. Read our full AI policy.
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