“I think we should be able to make some pretty good deals for both countries,” Trump said.

Lula said he was optimistic relations between Brazil and the US would advance during his meeting with Trump.

“There’s no reason for having any other kind of conflict between Brazil and the United States,” Lula said through a translator.

The leaders were speaking ahead of their meeting on the sidelines of the Asean summit in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday.

Following the meeting, Brazil’s foreign minister Mauro Vieira said the two presidents had a happy encounter and that Trump gave instructions to start a bilateral negotiation process.

“We will establish a negotiation schedule and establish the sectors we will talk about so that we can move forward,” Vieira told journalists at the summit, adding that Brazil had requested tariffs be suspended during the negotiation process.

Trump increased tariffs on US imports of most Brazilian goods to 50% from 10% in early August, linking the move to what he called a “witch hunt” against the South American country’s former President Jair Bolsonaro.

Lula has previously described the tariff hike as a “mistake”, citing a US$410 billion US trade surplus with Brazil over 15 years.

Higher US tariffs on Brazilian goods have begun reshaping the global beef trade, pushing up prices in the US and encouraging triangulation via third countries such as Mexico, while Brazilian exports to China continue to boom.