The tariffs imposed under the Brazil emergency were switched off in February, and on Tuesday the emergency itself was continued for another year
The duties are gone. The emergency that carried them is not.
A notice signed on July 28 and filed for public inspection at 11:15 that morning continues, for one year, the national emergency with respect to Brazil declared in Executive Order 14323 of July 30, 2025. The mechanism is section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act, which lets a national emergency lapse on its anniversary unless the President publishes a continuation in the Federal Register and sends it to Congress. Without Tuesday's notice, this one would have expired on July 30.
The grounds are the same ones the original order gave, restated. The notice describes policies, practices and actions of the Government of Brazil that it says interfere with the economy of the United States, infringe on the free expression rights of United States persons and violate human rights. It says members of the Government of Brazil are politically persecuting a former president of Brazil, his family and his followers. It names the Brazil Supreme Court's censorship and imprisonment of those exercising free expression as activities that continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat. Those are the President's characterisations, in the document, and they are the stated basis for the continuation.
What the notice does not mention is the fate of the tariffs.
Executive Order 14323 had nine sections, and the operative ones were about duties: tariff modifications, the scope of duties and stacking, and an authority to modify them. On February 20, 2026, Executive Order 14389 turned those off. It listed nine executive orders, including 14323, and provided that the additional ad valorem duties imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in each of them "shall no longer be in effect and, as soon as practicable, shall no longer be collected."
The same order was careful about what it was not doing. Every other action taken to address those emergencies, it said, is unaffected, and the emergencies themselves "remain in effect and shall not be affected by this order." So the February order and Tuesday's notice fit together exactly. One removed the duties and kept the emergency. The other keeps the emergency for another year.
Brazilian goods are not duty-free in the meantime, and the reason is a separate statute. The Office of the United States Trade Representative closed a Section 301 investigation this month and set an additional 25 percent duty on goods of Brazil entered for consumption on or after 12:01 eastern time on July 22, with an annex of exemptions. That action rests on the Trade Act of 1974 rather than on IEEPA, and nothing in Tuesday's notice touches it.
What an open emergency buys is a starting position. Declaring one requires findings and a published order. Acting under one that already exists does not.
