Minutes after the US and China revealed their 86-page trade truce this week, Brazilian diplomats on three continents scrambled to parse the agreement and answer a pressing question: were the good times over?
Since the beginning of the US-Sino trade hostilities, the Latin American nation has surfed a surge of demand from Beijing for agricultural produce, particularly soyabeans, which are used to fatten Chinese livestock.
Now, however, the pledge by China, the dominant importer of the oilseed, to buy $200bn in US goods and services over the next two years — one of several concessions to Washington in their “phase one” trade deal — has stoked concerns that demand for Brazilian produce could collapse, with some analysts forecasting a $10bn hit to exports and a fourfold increase in excess stocks.