Brazil Makes Trade Pitch to Southeast Asia as US and China Fight

Days before Donald Trump unveiled his so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs in early April, Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva made a trade announcement of his own: Vietnam had agreed to resume purchases of Brazilian beef it had halted nearly a decade prior.

Years in the making, the deal was part of a larger Brazilian push to expand commercial ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — a 10-country bloc known as Asean that is home to more than 600 million people and a $2.3-trillion market — as it explored new commercial frontiers for its abundance of agricultural products.