Braziltopia

$7.4 billion: that was Brazil's trade surplus in August, the best result for the month in three years, the Ministry of Development, Industry, Trade and Services (MDIC) reported on Friday (Sept. 4). In practical terms, the country sold that much more abroad than it bought, and the dollars stayed with exporters, from soybean farmers to oil companies. The result was 23.8% higher than in August last year, when the surplus was $5.97 billion.Exports totaled $33.15 billion, up 12.2% by daily average (a comparison that adjusts for the number of business days), while imports reached $25.76 billion, up 9.2% in the same measure. Total trade flow, exports plus imports, hit $58.9 billion, the highest for any August in the historical series, according to state news agency Agência Brasil. At this week's exchange rate, near 5.10 reais to the dollar, the monthly surplus is worth more than 37 billion reais.In brief: the trade balance compares what Brazil sells abroad (exports) with what it buys from other countries (imports). When sales top purchases, the result is a surplus; when the reverse happens, a deficit. It is the same math a household does at the end of the month: if more money comes in than goes out, savings are left over.What drove the resultCrude oil led foreign sales, at $4.82 billion, up 18%. Next came soybeans ($4.41 billion, up 14%), green coffee ($1.1 billion, up 24.1%), iron ore ($2.35 billion, down 10.8%) and corn ($1 billion, down 25.3%). Beef exports fell 19.7% because Brazil hit the annual quota of 1.106 million tonnes set by China, which charges a 55% surcharge on anything above that limit.By destination, the standout was the European Union: sales rose 46.4%, to $5.8 billion. Sales to the United States grew 12.1%, to $3.19 billion, despite Washington's extra tariffs, which combined can reach 37.5%. Sales to China, Brazil's largest market, fell 10.9%, to $8.34 billion.The trade deal between the Mercosur bloc and the European Union, in effect since May, may have contributed to the surge in sales to the bloc, said Herlon Brandão, head of the MDIC's foreign trade statistics department. "We have reports from exporters who are indeed benefiting from the agreement in this period," he said. According to him, it is still too early to measure the precise effect of lower tariffs.A strong year so farEven while selling more, Brazil ran an $824 million deficit with the United States in August, as purchases of American goods, at $4.01 billion, topped sales. So far this year, the gap with the U.S. totals $3.21 billion. Overall, the January-August surplus stands at $55.3 billion, 28.2% above the $43.2 billion recorded in the same period of 2025, the second-best result for those months since records began in 1989.Imports of consumer goods rose 15% in August, a sign that Brazilians bought more foreign products. In July, the MDIC raised its 2026 surplus forecast from $72.1 billion to $90 billion. Analysts surveyed by the Focus bulletin, a weekly Central Bank poll of financial institutions, are more cautious and project $78 billion.

An institute founded by Justice André Mendonça of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court (STF) signed 28 contracts with public bodies worth a combined 10.7 million reais in a little over two years of operation. The survey was published by BBC News Brasil on Thursday (Sept. 3). According to the report, every contract identified was signed through dispensa or inexigibilidade de licitação, two legal mechanisms that let public agencies hire without competitive bidding.The survey drew on records from the National Public Procurement Portal, known as PNCP. The BBC notes that direct hiring is allowed under Brazilian law and does not by itself indicate wrongdoing. Clients included the state governments of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Piauí, municipal governments and professional councils such as the Federal Accounting Council. The deals covered training courses ranging from administrative management to public security.Created after the court, left this weekThe Instituto Iter was created in November 2023, nearly two years after Mendonça joined the court on the nomination of former president Jair Bolsonaro. He had earlier served as the federal government's chief attorney and as Bolsonaro's justice and public security minister. Documents seen by the BBC show the Mendonça family held a stake through another company, Integre Cursos e Pesquisa em Estado de Direito Governança Global, a shareholder in the institute. In 2024, when the Iter was registered in São Paulo, the justice's wife, Janey Nagliatti de Mendonça, was named its administrator. The report also cites Brazil's judiciary statute, which restricts the activities judges and court justices may perform.On Thursday, Mendonça said in a statement that he had decided the day before to leave the partnership. He and his wife gave up their stakes with no financial compensation. In a statement to the BBC, the Instituto Iter confirmed the exit and denied that the justice ever received profits from the entity."We record that, throughout the two years of the Instituto Iter's activity, there was no distribution of profits or dividends."The Vorcaro meetingThe institute also said the intellectual nature of its courses justified the exemptions from bidding. Attention to its contracts grew after Mendonça told the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo that he had met banker Daniel Vorcaro, owner of Banco Master, in early 2025 at the institute's headquarters in São Paulo. The meeting was first reported on Wednesday (Sept. 2) by journalist Paulo Motoryn in his Noites Húngaras newsletter. Mendonça now serves as the reporting justice in the case investigating alleged financial crimes by Vorcaro, though he did not hold the case at the time of the meeting. His office said the meeting, which included one of the banker's lawyers, covered a lawsuit at the STF over precatorios, court-ordered government debt payments, of interest to the bank. The newspaper O Globo reported that Vorcaro attempted to close a contract with the institute.The BBC said it found no record so far that the institute benefited from contracts linked to Vorcaro's companies. The survey lands in the middle of a crisis between Mendonça and Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Mendonça lifted the secrecy on a report on alleged messages between Vorcaro and Moraes, including a 129 million reais contract sent by the banker's team to the justice's wife, Viviane Barci de Moraes. Moraes has not commented on the report so far. What comes next rests with the court: Mendonça has asked STF President Edson Fachin to refer a request to investigate Moraes to the full bench, a decision that remains pending.