This popular Sao Paulo market is Trump's nightmare

"Excuse me for bothering you, but what are you looking for?" the man calls out to passersby and offers them a menu. There are no dishes on offer, but watches, sneakers, and shirts from famous brands, in a market accused by Washington of being a hotbed of counterfeiting. The man calls himself "Alemao 25" (German 25), is about 30 years old, and works as a tout on March 25th Street in Sao Paulo.

This popular market, one of the largest in Latin America, has been in the spotlight since the publication on Tuesday of a report by the administration of US President Donald Trump. "The March 25th Street sector has been one of the largest markets for counterfeit goods for decades," according to the report, which criticizes Brazil's failure to "protect intellectual property."

All this comes as the United States opened an investigation this week into alleged "unfair trade practices" by Brazil, just days after Mr. Trump announced punitive 50% tariffs on Brazilian products starting August 1. "Piracy isn't a crime, it's business," Alemao 25 told AFP with a smile.

Located in the historic center of Sao Paulo, a vibrant yet deprived neighborhood of Latin America's largest megalopolis, 25 de Mar Street and its surrounding areas attract around 200,000 people a day who come to shop in more than 3,000 establishments listed on 17 streets, according to the Union of Traders.

In its maze of shopping malls and street stalls, "La 25," as it's known locally, offers—wholesale and retail—national and imported products, authentic and counterfeit, of excellent and poor quality. Electronics, clothing, perfumes, jewelry, textiles, toys, alcohol, sex toys, and more: Sao Paulo residents like to say that "if you can't find something in La 25, you won't find it anywhere."

"Trump's tariffs are (Jair) Bolsonaro's fault, it's pure political jockeying," said Anderson Ferreira, a 52-year-old electronics salesman. Donald Trump justified the tariff threat against Brazil by citing a supposed "witch hunt" against his Brazilian ally, the former far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro is on trial for an alleged coup attempt in 2022 aimed at preventing the inauguration of the current left-wing president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Conversely, for Victor Felicio, a 29-year-old restaurateur who came to shop, "it's Lula's fault, for confronting Trump and welcoming the BRICS" recently at a summit of the emerging countries bloc in Rio de Janeiro. On March 25th Street, a shopping hub for a century, many vendors prefer not to speak to the press. Many are from the Chinese and Syrian-Lebanese communities, and some say they don't speak Portuguese.

"If they criticize us in the United States, it's because they don't know anything, because the products here that they call "fake" are the same ones that other stores sell as authentic, with the same quality and a better price," says Juliana, a 29-year-old perfume saleswoman. Other shopkeepers, like her, who refuse to give their names, repeat the same argument: many products are not counterfeit, but come from contraband.

Counterfeiting and smuggling cause Brazil an annual loss of approximately $75 billion—about 4% of GDP—in lost taxes for the state and in lost revenue for legitimate businesses, according to the Brazilian Anti-Counterfeiting Association. In a statement, however, the Union of March 25th Street Traders stated that "the vast majority of traders in the area operate legally and transparently."

"Their products are mainly imported from China and have no connection with the United States," the organization insists. "One of the two greatest powers in the world is worried about March 25th Street..." quipped Lula's chief of staff, Rui Costa. Indifferent to the trade war, Maria Pauline, a 61-year-old domestic worker, will continue to come "almost every week." "It's always cheaper here."