Brazil has long shown promise of becoming an emerging power but never quite gotten there. After strong economic growth in the 2000s amid a commodity boom – culminating in a 7.5 percent growth rate in 2010 – its ambitions once more crumbled. A devastating recession struck; GDP plunged 3.5 percent in each of 2015 and 2016, and political scandal and crisis triggered the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff. Despite these setbacks, Brazil remains among the world’s ten largest economies, the dominant economy in Latin America – with around half of South America’s landmass, population, and GDP – and a global leader in agribusiness that rivals the United States, being the world’s top exporter of soybeans, poultry, sugar, and coffee. Although right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro personally aligns with the cultural populism of Donald Trump, China has become Brazil’s most important trading partner so that Brazil’s economy, including its powerful agribusiness sector, increasingly depends on China and the East.