US Tariffs Shift Brazil's Freight Forwarding Routes

A 25% tariff on Brazilian goods took effect on July 22, 2026, under Section 301 of the US Trade Act. A parallel forced-labor investigation added 12.5 percentage points to specific products, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE). In the first half of 2026, Brazilian exports to the United States fell 13%, and the US share of Brazil’s total exports dropped to 9.4%, its lowest level since 1997, per the South China Morning Post. China, meanwhile, absorbed 31.5% of Brazilian exports, up from 28.9% the year before. For freight forwarders in Brazil, that means the route mix is changing, and freight costs, currency exposure and per-shipment margins are changing with it.

Exports to the US shrank while China’s share hit a record

PIIE details that the 25% Section 301 tariff covers roughly one third of Brazilian exports to the United States: machinery, electrical equipment, granite, gold, tires, sugar and apparel. Another 13% were already subject to earlier sector-specific duties (steel, aluminum, copper, automobiles). The exempt share, at 44%, includes coffee, orange juice, beef, iron ore, wood pulp and petroleum. How much a forwarder feels the hit depends on what its exporter clients actually ship.

The decline shows up in the totals. Exports to the US came in at $17.4 billion in the first half of the year, down 13% from the same period a year earlier. Exporters adjusted by finding new buyers. According to the SCMP, 72% of companies assisted by Brazil’s trade promotion agency began selling to new destinations after the tariffs took hold. Coffee producers redirected volume to Europe: Germany replaced the United States as their top buyer. Fruit exporters moved into India and Southeast Asia.

China kept pulling ahead as the top destination. Brazilian exports to China grew 21.9% in the half, driven by soybeans, iron ore, petroleum, beef and wood pulp. The Brazil-China corridor got heavier just as freight rates on that route surged.

More volume on the Asia-Brazil route means costlier, more volatile freight

The SCFI (Shanghai Containerized Freight Index), published by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange, hit $7,942 per 40-foot container from the Far East to Santos on September 18, 2026, according to Flux Comex. On February 27, 2026, the same index sat at $1,622 per 20-foot container. That is a 375% increase.

The past six weeks give a sense of how wild the swings have been. Between August 14 and September 4, the rate per 40-foot container climbed from $7,476 to $9,616, nearly 29% in three weeks. Over the following two weeks it fell back to $7,942, a 17% drop. When rates move like that, a quote goes stale in days.

Capacity on the Asia-South America route surpassed 2 million TEU in Q1 2026, more than double what it was three years earlier. The fleet has grown. CMA CGM deploys 14,300-TEU vessels on its M2X service, among the largest ever used on a north-south trade, and ZIM launched a new Asia-South America service in July 2026. Even so, utilization stays near 98% during peak periods because seasonal demand plus route diversions from the Red Sea conflict eat up the extra space. When cargo softens, slots open, spot rates drop, and the cycle repeats week after week.

For Brazilian forwarders booking export cargo, more volume on the Asia corridor comes with a price. Shipments are up, but so is the cost of operating the route, and freight rate predictability has shrunk.

What the route shift does to forwarder margins

For many Brazilian freight forwarders, US-bound exports were a steady margin business. Ocean freight on the East Coast and Gulf routes ran lower than on the Asia trade, with fewer surcharges and shorter transit times. Currency mattered less because both the billing to the exporter and the cost to the carrier were in US dollars. Movements in the PTAX (Brazil’s official exchange rate) affected the conversion to reais, but they hit both sides equally.

When volume moves to the China route, several things break at once. Per-container freight, as the SCFI data show, runs at three to five times historical cost and swings 15% to 25% from one week to the next. Surcharges pile on: peak-season surcharges (PSS), bunker adjustment factors (BAF), and terminal handling charges (THC) at both ends. Currency exposure gets lopsided too: freight costs are in dollars, but revenue from a Brazilian exporter may be partly in reais, depending on the Incoterm and the commercial agreement. In September 2026 the dollar sat near BRL 5.14, per InfoMoney, with analysts expecting more swings.

Per-shipment margin has gotten harder to predict and easier to lose. A forwarder tracking margin by route and by currency can spot where profitability is slipping before losses pile up. One that only looks at the consolidated monthly close finds out too late.

How Tier2 Cargo tracks margin by route and currency

Tier2 Cargo records margin at three stages of a shipment: forecast at quoting, invoiced, and realized at settlement. Each shipment carries its route, freight currency and the exchange rate captured at each stage. You see the result by route and currency shipment by shipment, without waiting for the monthly close.

When freight cost changes between the quote and the booking, the gap shows in the second stage. When the settlement exchange rate diverges from the quoting rate, the third stage reveals how far the realized profit landed above or below what was sold.

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Try breaking out the last three months of margin by corridor (United States, China, Europe) and comparing forecast margin against realized margin in each one. The gap between those two numbers shows where the business is absorbing the cost of the transition. That makes it easier to decide whether to reprice a client or put commercial effort into the corridors that still hold margin.