Soybean harvest in Não-Me-Toque, a municipality in Rio Grande do Sul. Diego Vara/Reuters A report published this Tuesday (7/21) in the British Financial Times, one of the world's leading financial newspapers, states that the United States is at risk of losing its position as the world's largest agricultural exporter to Brazil. According to the US Department of Agriculture and the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, the US exported US$171 billion in agricultural products last year, just US$2 billion more than Brazil. In 2021, this difference was US$56 billion. ??Do you have any reporting suggestions? Send to g1 The text says that Brazilian agricultural exports grew 6% in the first half of 2026, reaching a record of US$87 billion, thanks not only to its role as the world's largest producer of soybeans and beef and poultry, but also to the success of crops such as cotton, which had the USA as its main exporter, but which was surpassed by Brazil. Trump's tariff: government should start meetings this Tuesday with sectors affected by the new rate See the list of products that were exempt and those that will be impacted by the new rate Sales of Brazilian products to China break record after US tariff The role of China For analysts interviewed by the British report, who was in the states of Iowa, in the USA, and in Mato Grosso, in Brazil, the main reason behind this change is the "commercial disturbances triggered by the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump". This is because China, one of the largest buyers in the world, significantly reduced its imports from Americans after the Republican imposed tariffs on the country in 2018, during his first term in the White House. A graph accompanying the report shows that, in 2016, China purchased similar volumes of soybeans from Brazil and the USA. Brazilian exports were already growing, but at a more moderate pace. With Beijing's retaliation to Washington's tariffs in 2018, however, this growth accelerated. In 2025, Brazil exported more than 80 million tons of soybeans to China, while the US did not reach tens of millions of tons. The data comes from UN Comtrade (United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database), considered the largest and most comprehensive public repository of international trade statistics. Trump's last visit to China, in May 2026, was defined more by symbolist rhetoric than concrete announcements Getty Images via BBC The Financial Times says that although the US remains capable of producing "extraordinary harvests", "profit margins are disappearing as trade tensions and low prices leave their mark on the Midwest". According to the report, the estimate by the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest organization and lobbying group of farmers and ranchers in the USA, is that next year the sector will have losses of US$ 138 per acre for soybeans, US$ 167 for corn, US$ 145 for wheat and US$ 406 for cotton. The rise of Mato Grosso The Financial Times reminds us that "the strength of Brazil's agricultural sector is not just a consequence of American trade policy", but is something that has been built over the last few decades. The report says that Brazil, today still a leader in the export of coffee, sugar cane and orange juice, depended on imports to feed its population until the 1970s. The situation changed when the country began to take advantage of its territory, capable of generating two or even three harvests in the same year. This is partly due to the availability and low cost of land, mainly in border regions, but also to the expansion of production to areas previously considered infertile or difficult to cultivate, which gained survival with "the treatment of soils poor in nutrients and the genetic development of crops adapted to the climate". "This continuous production model helps to dilute fixed costs and, normally, improves the margins of rural properties", explained Raphael Bulascoschi, analyst at commodities brokerage StoneX, to the British newspaper. But Brazil, add the experts interviewed by the Financial Times, is also preparing for less favorable scenarios, given the high internal interest rates, the drop in commodity prices and, after the war between Iran and Israel, the rise in the price of fertilizers, which come, for the most part, from abroad.