Geopolitics risk-off · 6–18 months
A what‑if from the future

What if Brazil pivots its soy exports entirely to China?

Brazil redirecting all soy to China and tariffing US ethanol/tech is bullish CBOT soybeans on US export displacement and a relative win for Chinese crushers, so the directional read is agri, not a generic Nasdaq selloff. Rhymes with 2018 when China's retaliatory soy tariff handed Brazil record share and US farm-belt pain. China is the swing soy buyer; the china_growth +0.3 here is questionable - the shock helps Chinese feed costs but US soy/ethanol is the real loser, so the cascade is mislabeled.

30%
our model probability
over 6–18 months
prediction markets — the market's odds
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Anchored to measured history 30% · 90% range 16–45% · 40 dated precedents behind it — a wider range means thinner evidence

Every number ships with its receipt — the odds, the range, the precedents, and a public grade at Reality Check. The statistical machinery that produces it is proprietary.

The butterfly cascade

How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.

Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving

Our model's odds (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 6–18 months horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. Loading the probability audit trail…

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What it would mean

If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. Brazil hikes tariffs on US ethanol and tech after Washington levies, redirecting soy exports entirely to China. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Trade tension ▲ · Food inflation ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.

Methodology. Probability and impact are anchored to history and scored against what actually happens — wins and losses, in public, at Reality Check. Market odds live from Polymarket & Kalshi. By Vikas Singh, Quantitative Strategist. Updated 2026-08-13.