In yesterday’s post on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s postponed tour of Latin America we mentioned how U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was not pleased over “disturbing” inroads made by Iran and China into the region. Surely she won’t be happy with the news that China has surpassed the U.S. as Brazil’s leading trade partner:According to the trade balance released by (Brazil's Ministry of Development, Industry and Exterior Trade), the sum of Brazil's exports and imports with China reached 3.2 billion U.S. dollars in April, over the 2.8 billion dollars in its trade with the U.S.The change may be sustainable since China’s economy continues to grow while that of the U.S. is in recession according to one Brazilian official. This should permit a diversification of exports to China and boost Brazil’s trade surplus added Barral.
Trade Minister Welber Barral said the change was "historic," as the U.S. has been Brazil's biggest trading partner since the 1930s.
Could China make such strong economic inroads in other Latin American nations? Stay tuned…
Image- Mercopress (Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping met with Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva last February)
Online Sources- Xinhua, The Latin Americanist, Reuters, LAHT
Great for Brazil! Good for LatAm.
ReplyDeleteHopefully other (and ALL) LatAm countries follow suit to diversify their trade with other countries in Asia, Middle East and Africa.
Enough is enough of this US economic dependence for centuries...
Welcome to the new world order....
What are Brazil's 2nd and 3rd busness partner?
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. would be second. I don't know who would be third but my hunch is that it's another Latin American country.
ReplyDeleteU.S is the second trade partner and Argentina is the third.
ReplyDelete