Brazil's Relationship with the U.S.

Brazil and the U.S. have had a close relationship for about 200 years. They both currently cooperate on trade issues, HIV/AIDS efforts, regional concerns, and the international peacekeeping operation in Haiti. The U.S. and Brazil are the top producers of ethanol in the world. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, referred to as Lula, and President Bush recently signed an agreement to promote and increase the worldwide trade in ethanol. They have worked to build efforts toward controlling the production of narcotics and their distribution across Latin America. The two countries were also in cooperation on creating the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Brazil's economy is one of the fastest growing in the world, but due to the global recession, its exports are falling. Brazil has been helping the U.S by supporting our trade agreements with its Latin American neighbors. With the economy slowing, however, it is weakening Brazil's ability to convince Latin America to continue friendly trading policies with the U.S. Right now, we are experiencing free trade with Latin American countries which reduces tarrifs, giving us lower prices for fruits, vegetable, coffee, and other items we import from them. Many countries believe the U.S. is at fault for the current recession, and could therefore withdraw from existing agreements and no longer trade freely with the U.S. This will raise our import prices and therefore, raise the final price to consumers. http://useconomy.about.com/b/2009/02/03/brazils-economy-weakens-not-good-for-us-trade-in-latin-america.htm