As the mainstay of Latin American prosperity and a huge market for US products, Brazil's economy can't be allowed to snap.
Brazil has the world's ninth largest economy - twice the size of Russia's.
It's also a commercial anchor for a region that absorbs up to 20 percent of American exports. Financial storminess there could harm US businesses much more than the earlier reversals, with even greater repercussions. The success of efforts to shore up Brazil's currency, the real, will rely as much on politics as on sound economic theory. One part of the political equation resides in Washington. The Clinton administration remembers the burst of criticism that greeted the Mexican bailout, though all the US money was repaid with interest.