When Lula won the presidency in 2002, Brazil’s main trading partners were the United States (25.5%), the Netherlands (5.3%), Germany (4.2%) and China (4.2%).Brazil is currently a darling of economic and political progress, but lots (most? >100%?) of the underlying growth has been driven by commodity exports, and that story has ended badly before.
Over the eight years, the U.S. share collapsed, while the Chinese share more than tripled. By 2009, Brazil’s main trading partners were China (13.2%), the United States (9.6%), Argentina (7.8%) and the Netherlands (5.0%).
The writing was on the wall. As long as demand in these two nations continued for commodities, Brazil will continue to grow — but if demand were to fall abruptly, the situation could get difficult.
This article on Lula, also via MR, is also worth reading - it starts:
... in democratic conditions, to be more popular at the close than at the outset of a prolonged period in office is rare. Rarer still – indeed, virtually unheard of – is for such popularity to reflect, not appeasement or moderation, but a radicalisation in government. Today, there is only one ruler in the world who can claim this achievement, the former worker who in January stepped down as president of Brazil, enjoying the approval of 80 per cent of its citizens. By any criterion, Luiz Inácio da Silva is the most successful politician of his time.
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