By Isabel Teles

SAO PAULO (Reuters) -The United States has accepted a request for consultations from Brazil at the World Trade Organization regarding tariffs it imposed on its goods, even as it argued the levies are a matter of national security, according to a document posted on the WTO website.

President Donald Trump slapped a 50% tariff on most Brazilian imports earlier this month, in response to what he has called a “witch hunt” against his Brazilian ally, former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is on trial on charges of plotting a coup following his election loss in 2022.

In the document submitted to the WTO on Monday, the U.S. argues that certain requests from Brazil relate to issues of national security, which are “political matters not susceptible to review or capable of resolution by WTO dispute settlement.”  

The tariffs, the document added, were necessary because recent policies and practices of Brazil are “undermining the rule of law and threatening the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”

(Reporting by Isabel Teles, editing by Manuela Andreoni and Sandra Maler)