Brazil on Thursday asked the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for the right to impose sanctions of up to $1.037 billion a year on US goods in a row over cotton, diplomatic sources said on Thursday.
Brazil says the United States has failed to obey a WTO ruling outlawing some of its cotton policies and it wants the right to hit back against US interests.
"The request was lodged today," one diplomatic source said.
The sanctions would be in the area of goods and services and also in intellectual property, such as patent rights - seen as something which would hit the powerful US pharmaceuticals industry.
The United States, the world's number one cotton producer, has said it has taken significant steps to reform cotton subsidies in line with the WTO ruling. But Brazil sees the measures as too little, too late, leading it to request authorisation from the WTO's conflict resolution body to apply sanctions against the United States, its largest trade partner.
The dispute began a few years ago when Brazil, with the backing of other cotton-producing nations, like Benin and Chad, argued at the WTO that US cotton subsidies cost poor farmers around the world hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue.