wsj.com

In 2020 the reliance on the Chinese market deepened. China’s early recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic allowed its economy to grow much faster than the depressed economies of the US, Europe and South America. Sales of soya climbed steadily and were given an additional boost by the trade war that reduced sales from the US, hitherto an important riva

China’s penetration into Brazil presents some policy challenges. First, there is the sheer weight of the trade dependency. Without the China trade surplus to cushion its current account deficit, Brazil would have much greater financing needs. “The administration knows that if things were to go wrong China might punish us and our trade surplus would

When Rousseff was impeached and the thirteen years of PT government ended in 2016, exports to China amounted to $35.6bn, which represented about 19 per cent of that year’s total exports. But in the following three years to 2019 sales to China doubled, and Brazil’s trade surplus with Beijing increased from about $5bn to $28bn. In other words, just a

Perhaps the biggest concern is that Chinese investments and economic ties will cause companies and politicians to act in ways that are counter to Brazil’s national interest.

One of the factors that had augured well for Brazil’s economy at the beginning of 2021 was the sharp rise in commodity prices in the second half of 2020. This had been fuelled largely by China’s relatively rapid recovery from the pandemic, with the economy of Brazil’s biggest trading partner growing in the fourth quarter of 2020. Between March 2020