Weekend bullets

• Earlier this week the US and Brazil appeared to tentatively resolve a trade spat that started with US cotton subsidies. Michael Grunwald at Time tells us the details of the resolution, which incredibly includes US$147 million a year from the US government to Brazilian agribusiness. As weird as that sounds, the US is paying off Brazilian agriculture companies in order to keep its subsidies to US cotton farmers.

• Just eight years ago, Subway had a measly two stores in Brazil. But they have of goal of passing McDonalds as the largest fast food chain in the world by 2014. Through an aggressive expansion, today Subway has 408 Brazilian stores.  Exame has an interesting read (Portuguese) about how they accomplished it.

• Brazil sent their Trade Minister and a 100 person delegation to Iran to explore business opportunities. Maybe in the vacuum of the US and other western nations, there are lots of opportunities. 

• Delta plans to add flights from Detroit to Sao Paulo. It's surprising this route didn't exist before -- since both GM and Ford have headquarters in the two cities.