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

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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

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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

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