Commodity exports push trade-surplus forecasts higher

Forecasts for Brazil's 2026 trade surplus have been revised upward, with estimates now clustering between roughly $77 billion and $90 billion, on the back of stronger oil, soybean and other commodity shipments.

The surplus is the main counterweight to the widening current-account deficit. Goods trade is comfortably positive; it is services, interest and profit remittances that drag the overall external balance negative.

The dependence on commodities is also the vulnerability. A turn in oil or soy prices would narrow the surplus quickly, and the external gap would then show through more visibly in the currency.

For now the export engine is running, and it is one of the few unambiguously positive lines in the August data.