More information about Brazil is available on the Brazil country page and from other Department of State publications and other sources listed at the end of this fact sheet.

U.S.-BRAZIL RELATIONS

The United States and Brazil enjoy deep and broad political and economic relations.  Following Brazil’s independence in 1822, the United States was one of the first countries to recognize Brazil, in 1824.  As the largest democracies in the Western Hemisphere, the United States-Brazil partnership is rooted in a shared commitment to sustainable economic growth and prosperity; promotion of international peace, security, and respect for human rights; protection of the environment and biodiversity; and strong defense, health and security cooperation.

U.S.-Brazil Bilateral Economic Relations

Brazil is the world’s twelfth-largest economy, and the United States is Brazil’s second-largest trading partner.  In 2022, two-way trade in goods and services was $120.9 billion and the United States had an overall trade surplus of $30 billion for goods and services.  Brazil’s main imports from the United States are industrial and energy-related products, such as refined fuel, natural gas, fertilizers, aircraft, and medical instruments.  The United States is Brazil’s second-largest export market.  Brazil’s primary export products to the United States are crude oil, aircraft, iron and steel, coffee, and wood pulp.  U.S. foreign direct investment in Brazil totaled $191.6 billion in 2021, by far the most of any country.  The United States and Brazil conduct regular government-to-government exchanges on topics including trade facilitation, good regulatory practices, and environmental and labor standards.  In February 2022, a new protocol updated the 2011 Agreement on Trade and Economic Cooperation, adding state-of-the-art provisions on Customs Administration and Trade Facilitation, Good Regulatory Practices, and Anticorruption.  Bilateral mechanisms including the U.S.-Brazil Energy Forum, Critical Minerals Working Group, Commercial Dialogue, and CEO Forum bring cabinet officials and private sector leaders together to coordinate policy measures that can facilitate better economic relations.  In February 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced the launch of a full Global Entry arrangement with the Government of Brazil to offer Brazilian citizens greater ease in traveling to the United States for business or tourism. 

U.S.-Brazil Relations on Human Rights

The United States and Brazil have partnered extensively on human rights.  Since 2015, the two countries have held the U.S.-Brazil Global Human Rights Working Group dialogue to engage on key multilateral and bilateral issues and remained in consistent communication on these matters.  At the latest meeting in February 2022, the United States and Brazil discussed positions and possibilities for better alignment within the United Nations, including the Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Council, as well as issues of bilateral concern, such as police violence and racial bias, gender equity, protection of rights of Indigenous peoples and environmental defenders, business and human rights, and the protection and promotion of religious freedom.  In May 2023, the Governments of Brazil and the United States held the first meeting of the revitalization of the U.S.-Brazil Joint Action Plan to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Discrimination and Promote Equality (JAPER), which will reestablish a comprehensive bilateral workplan to address social barriers for marginalized racial and ethnic communities in both the United States and Brazil.  JAPER is a forum to share best practices for improving access to education and health; addressing violence and justice; and nurturing culture and preserving memory.  At the May 2023 U.S.-Brazil Human Rights Dialogue, leaders stressed their commitment to strengthening human rights and democracy by promoting inclusive economic growth and opportunity for all citizens. 

Pandemic Preparedness and Response

The United States has enjoyed strong collaboration with Brazilian partners, the government, and the private sector on COVID-19 response efforts.  The U.S. government provided more than $30 million in direct funding, and the U.S. private sector contributed more than $75 million to fight COVID-19 in Brazil in 2020 and 2021.  The U.S. government also donated in 2021 three million doses of Janssen and 2.1 million doses of AstraZeneca vaccines.  

In 2020, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) donated 1,000 ventilators to Brazil and provided over $9.5 million to support Brazil’s COVID-19 response, leveraging private sector investments of more than $3.5 million.  In 2021, USAID provided additional assistance of over $18 million to support Brazil’s COVID-19 response.  Activities included risk communication and community engagement, infection prevention and control, water and sanitation, microcredit, and social safety net support, such as food and hygiene kits to remote communities in the Amazon region.  In 2020, the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) of the Department of Defense (DOD) donated personal protection equipment for medical personnel and food in Manaus and the Amazon region.  In the same year DOD funded research and development of a low-cost, patent-free emergency pulmonary ventilator, developed by a team at the University of Sao Paulo’s Polytechnic School.  In 2021, SOUTHCOM donated field hospitals to the states of Maranhão and Minas Gerais that can accommodate 40 beds, generators, and four ventilators for emergency response. 

In response to a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent a team of technical experts to the Amazon region in early 2021 to assist in the investigation and identification of a new variant.  In addition, CDC has been working with Brazilian institutions to enhance genomic sequencing capacity in Brazil, study vaccine effectiveness, address infection prevention and control, and enhance public health emergency response and management systems. 

U.S.-Brazil Climate Engagement

Brazil has one of the cleanest power generation matrixes in the world, with a heavy reliance on hydroelectric power as well as increasing solar and wind capacity.  More than 60% of the Amazon rainforest – a globally-critical carbon sink – lies within Brazil’s borders.  Though deforestation rates have increased in the last decade, the Lula administration committed to ending deforestation and reaching net zero emissions by 2050.  Deforestation rates in the first six months of 2023 have declined by one-third.  The United States currently provides technical and financial support through a variety of means, including USAID programming.  The United States and Brazil are also engaged in ongoing technical discussions to identify bilateral and multistakeholder opportunities to enhance the ambition of climate action – especially through reducing deforestation.

U.S.-Brazil Education and Cultural Cooperation

The United States and Brazil have a long history of people-to-people ties through investment and exchanges in education, culture, energy, health, agriculture, science and technology, English language training, and innovation. 

More than 40,000 youth, students, scholars, teachers, and professionals participated in exchanges between the United States and Brazil.  The binational Fulbright Commission (established in 1957) supports student and research exchanges with over 7,000 alumni since its inception.  Capacity building for English teaching and learning continues through a variety of projects with public and private educational institutions across the country.  Forty-two EducationUSA centers help Brazilian university students access information and opportunities to study in the United States.   

EducationUSA’s Opportunity Funds program gives Brazilian students from diverse, underprivileged backgrounds and high academic excellence the assistance they need to apply to U.S. colleges and universities.  Brazil’s network of 35 American Spaces provides a platform for public diplomacy programming on key foreign policy priorities, including promoting entrepreneurship, STEM education, the rule of law, and economic ties. 

In 2020, Brazil launched the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) to provide these leaders the knowledge, networks and access they need to launch or scale their business.  To date, over 180 women have benefited from the AWE program.  In 2021, the United States expanded Access-E2C, an English language program for young professionals from historically marginalized groups.  In 2022, the United States also launched the Power4Girls program, focusing on promoting innovation and leadership for high school girls, and Access Amazon to provide English skills to underserved populations in the Amazon.  To date, English Language programs in Brazil include 28 Specialist programs, 25 Virtual Fellow and Educator programs, six in-person Fellows, as well as 380 Access students, reaching diverse and indigenous audiences and addressing local language learning needs.  In 2022, the flagship Youth Ambassadors exchange program also celebrated its twentieth year of connecting Brazilian and American youth leaders.  From its inception in 2002 until 2023, 842 Youth Ambassadors from Brazil traveled to the United States.  The program expanded to more than 30 countries, including the United States, which has sent 198 Youth Ambassadors to Brazil as of 2023.  

Every year, 20 business and social entrepreneurs from Brazil participate in the Young Leaders of the Americas (YLAI) Fellowship Program, and Brazil has a network of 99 YLAI fellowship alumni.  The two countries maintain extensive scientific exchanges at the individual researcher level, as well as bilateral collaborations involving the U.S. Geological Survey, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Science Foundation, Department of Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Smithsonian Institution, Department of Energy, and National Institute of Standards and Technology.  The two nations collaborate on weather monitoring, metrology and standards, environmental impact monitoring, and an extensive range of public health efforts.  Brazil is also home to the National Institute of Health’s largest research portfolio in Latin America.  This work is supported by our bilateral agreement on science and technology cooperation. 

Since 2018, the United States supported three cultural heritage preservation projects in Brazil through the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation, including a major project to conserve the remains of the early 19th-century Valongo Wharf site in Rio de Janeiro, where an estimated one million enslaved Africans entered Brazil against their will.  Other recent projects include the preservation of the archives of the Museu de Arte in Rio Grande do Sul and the conservation of an historic building at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Diamantina. 

In summer 2022, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’TechGirls program expanded to include Brazil as an eligible country, with the very first cohort of Brazilian young women (ages 15-17) traveling to the United States to join peers from the United States and 34 countries worldwide as part of the monthlong, STEM-focused exchange.

U.S.-Brazil Technology and Defense Cooperation

In 2019, the Brazilian Congress ratified the Technology Safeguards Agreement, which guarantees that U.S. sensitive technologies are protected from unauthorized uses and establishes the safeguards to support the potential future launch of U.S.-licensed satellites or space launch vehicles from the Alcantara Space Center in northeastern Brazil.  This agreement opened new commercial opportunities for American and Brazilian enterprises in a range of advanced technologies related to space, including satellites.  In 2021 Brazil signed the Artemis Accords, becoming the first South American country to partner with the United States on an agreement that establishes a common vision for governance in the civil exploration and use of outer space, and has as a goal to land the first woman and the first person of color on the surface of the Moon. 

The United States and Brazil are strengthening cooperation on defense issues, including research and development, technology security, and the acquisition and development of products and services.  Under the umbrella of the 2015 U.S-Brazil Defense Cooperation Agreement, a range of security cooperation agreements and initiatives promote joint exercises and facilitate sharing sophisticated capabilities and technologies.  The third Plenary Meeting of the U.S.-Brazil Defense Industry Dialogue took place in Rio de Janeiro in April 2019.  This ongoing, public-private dialogue spurred numerous industry collaborations since its launch in 2016.  Brazil became a Major Non-NATO Ally of the United States in July 2019.   

In March 2022, the Brazilian Congress ratified the Research, Development, Test and Evaluations (RDT&E) Agreement with the United States, allowing for potential partnerships between U.S. and Brazilian defense technology companies.  The RDT&E Agreement enables joint development of basic, applied, and advanced technology between the U.S. DoD and the Brazilian Ministry of Defense.  Brazil is the only South American country to ratify such an agreement with the United States.  In September 2022, during the U.S.-led, Brazil-hosted UNITAS multinational maritime exercise in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil brought 20 participating countries together to improve maritime interoperability.  In March 2023, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter STONE, with two Brazilian ship observers onboard, achieved communications and operations milestones with Brazil during its South Atlantic deployment to counter illicit trafficking of narcotics as well as Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing.

U.S. Assistance to Brazil

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureaus of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) and of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Forest Service, and other partners provide law enforcement and justice sector investigation and prosecution training for Brazilian counterparts to support their efforts to combat trafficking of wildlife, gold, timber, and other conservation crimes that impact the United States, Brazil, and the region. 

The U.S. Mission also employs a variety of INL programs to build the capacity of Brazilian law enforcement partners.  INL-funded training led by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigations, and other partners is actively increasing Brazil’s capacity to increase citizen security, interdict drugs, and counter the expansion of Brazil-based transnational crime organizations that threaten U.S. security and prosperity.  The Department of Homeland Security partners with the Brazilian government to support investigations into arms trafficking, money laundering, child exploitation, and human trafficking.  In 2022, the State Department Counter Terrorism Program also funded a Resident Legal Advisor to assist law enforcement, prosecutors, and the judiciary increase their capacity to combat terrorism related crimes.  

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs (PM) has provided security assistance in the form of capacity building support to military education institutions within Brazil’s Ministry of Defense.  Through PM’s Global Defense Reform Program, the U.S. government cultivated a long-term relationship with the Brazilian War College and continues to assist the National Defense College in developing its curriculum on defense resource management.   

Since FY 2017, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) programmed nearly $1.1 billion in humanitarian assistance to protect and assist Venezuelans throughout the region, with nearly $109 million earmarked for Venezuelans in Brazil, including over $25 million in FY 2022 and over $5 million to date in FY 2023. 

PRM partners with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organization for Migration, and the UN Children’s Fund, along with several non-governmental organization partners including the Association of Volunteers in International Service, Caritas, and World Vision, to assist Venezuelans in Brazil. 

PRM funding for international organization partners includes nationwide campaigns to promote socio-economic inclusion and integration, including improved access to cash and voucher assistance, formal employment and entrepreneurship, housing, education, and other basic services.  PRM funding also supports public health structures to increase primary care access, voluntary internal relocation – including strengthened capacity of host states, municipalities, and civil society organizations to receive and integrate newly arriving Venezuelans. 

PRM funding to NGO partners facilitates socio-economic integration of Venezuelans through Portuguese language training, job placement, and post-relocation assistance.  Additionally, this funding supports safe and managed access to asylum and protection services, improved access to health services – including increased capacity of local healthcare systems, vocational and entrepreneurship training, provision of seed capital for small businesses, and private sector partnerships to create “Migrant Friendly” companies through trainings on hiring practices. 

USAID engages in a long-standing bilateral partnership with the Government of Brazil across several joint priorities, including biodiversity conservation in the Amazon, trilateral technical assistance for other countries in targeted areas, private sector partnerships to promote best practices and resources to stimulate development solutions for the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable socioeconomic livelihoods of the Amazon. 

  • The Partnership for Conservation of Amazon Biodiversity is a multi-year (2014-2030), $130 million bilateral agreement with the Brazilian Cooperation Agency, the Ministry of Environment, the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation, and the National Indigenous Foundation.  The purpose of the partnership is to strengthen Brazil’s vast protected area systems, including Indigenous territories, to support sustainable forest-friendly value chains, and to foster private sector leadership and engagement in joint solutions. 
  • USAID works with Brazilian partners to advance innovative financing solutions for hard-to-reach forest and biodiversity-supportive businesses, and facilitate private-sector led collective action platforms, such as the Partnership Platform for the Amazon, which includes 50+ companies (a mix of Brazilian, American, and international companies) that is generating private sector and market-led sustainable economic solutions designed to reduce deforestation, conserve biodiversity, and improve community well-being. 
  • The Amazon Biodiversity Fund (ABF) is a Brazilian impact investment fund that intends to raise $60 million in private capital.  Launched in November 2019, the ABF was co-designed with support from USAID/Brazil and the Alliance of Biodiversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture.  The 11-year term fund intends to address inherent financial challenges by providing flexible, long-term, capital for sustainable businesses that seek transformational, positive impact on Amazon biodiversity and communities.  Since it was launched, the fund closed deals with several Amazon impact businesses and has obtained a second investor, the Dutch bank ASN.  This is an important milestone that marks the beginning of the second fundraising phase of the ABF. 

In addition to these lines of effort, USAID’s regional mission in Peru provides medium-to-long-term assistance to Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru to improve and facilitate the economic integration of Venezuelan migrants. 

Brazil’s Membership in International Organizations

Brazil and the United States share a commitment to multilateral engagement through many international organizations, including the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Inter-American Development Bank, the G-20, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization.  Brazil will host the G-20 in 2024.  Brazil traditionally has been a leader in the inter-American community and is a member of the sub-regional MERCOSUL and PROSUL groups.

Bilateral Representation

Principal U.S. embassy officials are listed in the Department’s Key Officers List

Brazil maintains an embassy in the United States at 3006 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20008 (tel. 202-238-2700). 

CIA World Factbook Brazil Page   
U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Brazil 
USAID Brazil Page   
CDC Brazil Page   
History of U.S. Relations With Brazil 
Office of the U.S. Trade Representative Countries Page   
U.S. Census Bureau Foreign Trade Statistics   
Export.gov/U.S. Commercial Service in Brazil   
Library of Congress Country Studies   
Travel Information 
Embassy of Brazil in Washington, DC  

U.S. Department of State

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