Remarks by the Consul-General of Brazil in Toronto, Ambassador Enio Cordeiro, at the Seminar Doing Business with Brazil – 2025

(10.9.2025)

These are times marked by the uncertainties of unilateralism, which brings about an enormous amount of trade and political tensions.
Brazil and Canada are affected in many ways and both countries were suddenly reminded of the need to reduce vulnerabilities and reinforce economic resilience through diversification of their trade and investment relations.
This moment represents an invaluable opportunity to reinforce our bilateral ties and assert a broader recognition of the strategic importance of a much closer interaction and proximity between our two countries.
This is a moment to do more together and to strengthen our common agendas.
This is why our authorities decided to resume this year the negotiations for a free trade agreement between Canada and Mercosur, which have been dormant for the past 5 years.
The conclusion of this agreement would represent an enhanced market access for Mercosul countries in Canada and promote a stronger presence of Canada in a joint Mercosul market of nearly 300 million consumers and a combined GDP of more than 2,5 trillion USD.
This political opportunity cannot be missed.
We just received in Brazil two weeks ago a visit by the Canadian Minister of International Trade, who went to Brasília and São Paulo to discuss a framework for the resumed negotiations and the prospect for new trade and investment partnerships.
A meeting of the chief negotiators will take place in October. Mercosul and Canada will certainly make their best efforts, with pragmatism and flexibility, to bring negotiations to a successful conclusion by mid-next year.
I wish to point out that the economies of Brazil and Canada are comparable in size, both with a GDP over 2 trillion USD.
But it is worth to note that the share of international trade in the generation of the GDP is much lower in Brazil. International trade represents 30% of the GDP in the case of Brazil and 60% of the GDP for Canada. With a population of 210 million, the weight of domestic consumption is predominant for the Brazilian economy, even though resilience of the external sector remains always a crucial factor.
Both Brazil and Canada have trade relations covering all regions of the world.
Canada’s international trade is nevertheless heavily concentrated in one single market. The U.S. is the destination for 75% of the Canadian exports and the origin of 50% of the Canadian imports.
For its part, the geographical distribution of the Brazilian international trade reflects a lower degree of dependence on the hazards of a single market. (China: 26%; EU: 20%; USA: 13%; Latin America: 10%; Argentina: 4%; Mexico: 2,5%; Canada: 1,5%).
A clear shortcoming for Brazil is the fact that our exports to the world are heavily concentrated in a limited number of items. These items include crude oil, iron ore, soybeans, alumina, bovine meat and poultry, coffee, sugar and molasses.
The main destination for Brazilian exports of industrialized goods is the U.S. (aircrafts, industrial machines, engines, steel and lumber products, construction materials, orange juice). The U.S. is also the main source of foreign investments and the main exporter of services to Brazil.
The second destination for Brazilian exports of industrialized goods is Latin America. And in the automotive sector, Argentina and Mexico are our most important trading partners.
As for Canada, our bilateral trade stood last year above 9 billion USD, with Brazilian exports at 6 billion dollars and Brazilian imports at 3 billion dollars.
These figures are growing, although they still look shy and modest.
But the importance of our bilateral trade with Canada cannot be underestimated. As a matter of fact, Brazil trades individually with Canada almost the same value as we trade with Japan, Italy and France, and even more than we trade with the United Kingdom.
But again, the clear shortcoming in our bilateral trade lies in the fact that 80% of its value is limited to a very small number of products.
Exports by Brazil are concentrated in: gold (30%), alumina (25%), sugar and molasses (10%), regional airplanes and parts (8%), coffee (4%).
Exports by Canada: fertilizers/potash (50%), engines and machines (10%) aircrafts and parts (7%), ethylene polymers (5%), pharmaceuticals (4%)
However important, it is undeniable that this “traditional trade in the same limited group of items” fails to grasp the enormous opportunities and complementarities that exist in areas where both countries are leaders in technology, with abundant expertise and natural resources.
We still need to explore in a greater extent the immense opportunities for trade in complementary sectors such as biotechnology, biofuels, renewable energy, advanced manufacturing, digital services, food security and critical minerals, among others.
We definitely need to promote more trade and technological partnerships between our two private sectors.
As food for thought, the Brazilian Consulate prepared a non-paper on areas prone to increased collaboration, mapping out opportunities where our technological capabilities can drive economic transformation together. We will share this non-paper with you later in our discussions.
A real success story lies in our bilateral private investments, with more than 20 billion USD already flowing in each direction.
Canadian institutional investors have become strong partners in Brazil, helping to sustain development in many sectors, while generating high returns for Canadian pensioners.
Brazilian companies have equally transformed sectors of the Canadian economy. Vale operations for instance represent a real innovation hub in green mining technologies. Gerdau brings expertise in steel production, and JBS has become one of the largest food processors in Canada.
As a last point, I would like to share with you a few comments on the tariffs recently imposed by the U.S. on their trading partners around the globe, including Canada and Brazil.
For Brazilian exports, the most affected sectors are the steel industry, aluminum, tropical fruits, bovine meat, fish farming, furniture and coffee.
This tariff aggression is totally unfounded and unjustifiable.
I wish to point out that Brazil’s consolidated tariff in WTO is 11,2% and that the average effective tariff applied to all imports in Brazil is 4,9%.
For its part, the average effective tariff applied in Brazil to imports from the U.S. is a mere 2,7%.
50% of the U.S. exports enter Brazil with ZERO tariff (that means 40 billion dollars a year in exports from the U.S. enter Brazil without any tax at all (“one-way FTA ?”). Besides, an additional 15% of the Brazilian imports from the U.S. pay a tariff of only 2%.
In the past 5 years, the U.S. accumulated a 60 billion dollars trade surplus (in goods and services) with Brazil. And in the past 10 years, the U.S. accumulated a trade surplus of 263 billion dollars with Brazil.
Current events represent a setback in the quality of a relationship that we have always been keen to uphold and preserve. Brazil remains nevertheless committed to dialogue and to the active search for agreed solutions in trade disputes with all partners around the world.