Trade between the United States and Brazil has grown significantly over the past several years, with the United States enjoying a trade surplus with Brazil. The overall composition of traded goods has also shifted away from raw materials and toward more value-added products such as machinery, energy, aerospace, and chemicals, which support higher-paying manufacturing jobs in the United States, notably in Florida, Texas, California, and Louisiana.
While overall bilateral trade has increased in recent years, state-level gains have not been evenly distributed across the US economy. Furthermore, some states have significantly expanded their trade with Brazil, while others have lost relative weight. The result is a trade relationship that is stable in the aggregate but shifting in important ways beneath the surface.
An analysis of these state-level dynamics offers insights into where opportunities to further support US jobs and economic growth through enhanced trade with Brazil are perhaps being missed. Looking at the relationship through that lens helps reveal patterns that national-level figures alone can miss and, importantly, offers a basis for developing a strategy to deepen US-Brazil trade in ways that best support US economic interests.
A state-level view also helps clarify the difference between scale and exposure. Some states account for a large share of total trade with Brazil in absolute terms, while in others Brazil represents a more meaningful share of their broader trade profile. For example, Brazil is Florida’s top export partner, with $6 billion in annual exports led by a high value-added aerospace trade, whereas it remains outside of Texas’ top five trading partners despite multibillion-dollar exchange in energy products. In the Midwest, Brazil maintains robust trade across chemical, machinery, and pharmaceutical goods, while often competing with agricultural producers. These distinctions matter for understanding where the relationship carries greater economic weight.
By mapping these patterns across states, sectors, and metropolitan areas, this report prepared by the Brazil Program offers a more precise view of how US-Brazil trade is organized and where it has room to grow, bolstering local economies across both countries. It is intended as a contribution to a more grounded understanding of the bilateral economic relationship and the specific places and industries that sustain it.
