Bolsonaro Took Aim at China. Then Reality Struck.
Jair Bolsonaro talked tough on China during his campaign, but his tone has changed now that he’s in office. Deep business ties help explain why. He warned that China was acquiring too much control over Brazil’s niobium, an obscure but valuable mineral that can be added to steel to make it lighter and more resistant. Pedro Cervi, a 55-year-old agronomist from Curitiba in southern Brazil, has since the early 1990s owned 28,000 hectares of land in a booming northeast region of Brazil best known as Matopiba. Cervi, who grows maize, cotton and above all soy, exports 80 percent of his harvest to China, with produce carried by trailers up from his farm to the port of São Luis in Maranhão state. “China is really important for Brazil, especially on these new frontiers,” he told AQ.Industry Daily Observer, 23 April 2019
China, Brazil, Soy, trade agreement