特朗普拟对巴西征收25%关税，矛头指向Pix支付系统

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced that, after a year-long Section 301 investigation, the US would be imposing a 25% tariff on most Brazilian imports. In that investigation, the first item on the list of American complaints wasn't about tariffs or trade barriers, as you might expect. Rather, it was about, quote, digital trade and electronic payment services. A reference to a payment processor called Pix, that was set up by the Brazilian Central Bank as a cheaper alternative to companies like Visa and Mastercard.

So, in this video, we're going to explain what Pix is, why Trump doesn't like it, and why he probably won't get his way.

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Which flag is better? Canada or Iceland? What about Japan or Mexico? Albania or Barbados? How about a battle of the dragons between Wales and Bhutan? Cast your vote in our official flag ranking survey by clicking the link in the description. So, let's start by explaining what Pix actually does. In short, when you use your credit or debit card to pay for something, you're basically sending money from your bank account to the seller's bank account.

This might feel like a simple, instant process when you tap your card, but that payment has to actually be facilitated by a payment processor, which acts as a trustworthy middleman between your banks. Globally, the payment processing market is dominated by two major players, Mastercard and Visa, who together account for roughly 90% of all card transactions, if you exclude China, where the market is dominated by a state-owned company called UnionPay.

Now, unsurprisingly, not everyone likes this state of affairs. Not only does this mean these two companies are essentially skimming a bit off the top of every transaction and sending it back to the US. Their fees can also be prohibitively expensive, especially for would-be users in poorer countries. To remedy this, a number of jurisdictions have tried to nurture homegrown alternatives. In the EU, for instance, earlier this year, four national payment processors came together in an attempt to create a sort of European alternative.

Generally, however, these initiatives have fallen short because the Visa MasterCard duopoly is protected by what are known as network effects. In other words, everyone uses them because, well, everyone else already uses them, which makes them pretty convenient. However, one notable exception is Brazil, where in 2020, the Brazilian Central Bank introduced a new system called Pix. Before Pix, sending money in Brazil was both frustratingly slow and expensive.

This was bad news for any affected businesses, but also the economy as a whole, because this pricey but inefficient system encouraged Brazilians to hold their savings in cash instead. This meant there wasn't enough money in Brazil's banking system and encouraged a massive cash-based informal economy, which wasn't properly regulated or taxed. To remedy all this, in November 2020, the Brazilian Central Bank introduced a new