Zoellick working Brazil, Brazil working the Old Core

■"State Dept. Deputy Walks In on Trade Fight as Brazil Visit Starts," by Joel Brinkley, New York Times, 7 October 2005, p. A5.

■"Brazil Threatens Trade Sanctions Against China," by staff,

Wall Street Journal, 4 October 2005, p. A15.

Brazil is hopping mad about the U.S. not obeying a WTO judgment against us over our cotton subsidies, and it's threatening sanctions just as Bob Zoellick stops by for make-nice talks.

So he threatens back, knowing it's a bad idea but doing it because he wants to scare the Brazilians from doing anything rash.

But the Brazilians are not being rash, they're representing the New Core and Gap visa-a-vis the Old Core's intransigence on the criminally harmful ag subsidies.

I say, you go Brazil. You're doing God's work.

Bob is smart. He knows Brazil's markets are hard to break into, but once in, there's plenty of moolah to be made. Then again, there's that old Brazil joke: Brazil, country of the future--and it'll always be so.

Time to stop babbling about the potential of U.S.-Brazilian trade and start making it happen. Getting pissed over Brazil's emerging role as trade champion for the Gap is wrong. We need to welcome it.

And it's not just Brazil targeting us. They'll do it to the Chinese too.

Then again, everyone wants to do it to the Chinese.