🇨🇳 Cropped out

Around 2018, surging Chinese demand for beef and soybeans transformed Brazilian agribusiness. The trade war during President Donald Trump's first term pushed Chinese importers to swap American grains for Brazilian ones within a few years, and a devastating disease in China's swine herds sent the country abroad in search of beef, paying a premium for Brazilian meat.

The shifts proved durable. China now buys 71% of Brazil's soybean exports and 54% of the beef it sells abroad — and the dependence runs both ways, with Brazil supplying more than 60% of China's soybean imports and roughly 40% of its beef. The United States is also a major soybean supplier to China, and New Zealand a leading source of dairy.

As the world's largest food importer, with a vast population, China accepts that it will always…

Don’t miss out! Upgrade to unlock full access. The process takes only seconds with Apple Pay or Stripe. Become a member.

We’re here for readers who want to truly understand Brazil and Latin America — a region too often ignored or misrepresented by the international media.

Since 2017, our reporting has been powered by paid subscribers. They’re the reason we can keep a full-time team of journalists across Brazil and Argentina, delivering sharp, independent coverage every day.

If you value our work, subscribing is the best way to keep it going — and growing.

You're already a subscriber — which means you've made a choice. You decided that understanding Brazil, accurately and ahead of the headlines, was worth paying for. Thank you. That choice is the reason we exist.

Every contribution above your subscription goes directly into journalism: the reporters and editors on the ground in São Paulo, Brasília, and Rio who file what parachute correspondents and recycled-wire intelligence simply can't. It's the difference between covering 2026 and covering it the way it deserves to be covered.

If The Brazilian Report has earned a place in how you read the country, consider giving beyond what you already pay. Whatever the amount, it funds the work — and it keeps it independent.