Maryam Teixeira, a Brazilian who lives in the USA and works in the US at a supermarket, said the shop closed its doors for many months while negotiations over the tax were being held.

“It was the usual reason why a shop closes: there’s something going on,” she told the Associated Press.

“Now they are saying they can’t, we get fined. People are losing their jobs. That’s very sad.”

A man who did not want to be identified said he had previously visited other shops on the street and they had also made payments, which he then had to send to the US.

“They send everyone to Mexico,” he said. “They don’t have to be there because of the tax.”

Carmen Barroso Nunez, a spokeswoman for the Tax Board of Brazil, said it was unfair that her office would not investigate the cases of some of those affected.

“We have given this information to the United States and the Department of Homeland Security but we are waiting for clarification from our partners in Mexico,” she told the AP.

“If things go further, we will have to ask [for] legal intervention since it is not our jurisdiction to tax. We are not in charge of tax policy in our country.”

Under the Uruguay Round of the World Trade Organisation’s agreement on trade-related concessions, countries can levy a 20 percent levy on imports from developing countries, and a 35 percent tax on exports to emerging economies.

Many traders said they had been unaware that the Uruguayan government was taking full advantage of trade agreements to impose steep tariff increases on their products.

“I have never heard of any of this but we are going,” said Carlos Pereira who works at an IT company. “It is so unfair.”