Obamas in Brazil to build U.S. trade ties

BRASILIA, Brazil — President Obama and his family arrived here Saturday morning for his first trip to South America, a five-day tour intended to underscore economic ties to the region but overshadowed by crises in the Middle East and Japan.

"One of the main reasons for my trip is to strengthen economic partnerships abroad so that we create good jobs at home," Obama said, estimating that American exports to Brazil and Chile — his two destinations — account for more than 300,000 jobs in the United States, in manufacturing, high technology, chemicals, military equipment and clean-energy products.

Also, the U.S. is interested in helping to develop recently discovered deep-water oil reserves in Brazil and to build infrastructure for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics schedule there.

Obama's visit has also been billed as a way for him to connect more generally with Latin Americans, especially in Brazil, a multiracial society where he has been wildly popular since his presidential campaign. But the White House's plans to stage a speech in a plaza where thousands of Brazilians could see him were aborted in favor of one indoors, at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, because of the Secret Service's security concerns.

The Brazilians under the new presidency of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's first female president, are eager to build closer economic and political ties to the Obama administration.

The Obama administration from the start has described the trip, especially its Brazil leg, in terms of its potential job-creating benefits for the U.S. — in keeping with Obama's main domestic theme. So White House officials expressed confidence that Obama's absence from Washington was easily justifiable in terms most Americans could support — especially given the ever-present communications and crisis-management systems available to a traveling president.

South America largely escaped the global recession and prospered, increasing its markets for U.S. goods and services.

The region is considered a key to the president's goal of doubling exports by 2014. Brazil, with its growing economy and middle class, is now the eighth-largest partner of the U.S. American companies export three times more goods and services to Brazil, with which the U.S. has a trade surplus, than to China, with which the U.S. has a large and politically sensitive deficit.

Obama is traveling with his family — the first lady, Michelle Obama; his daughters, Malia and Sasha, who are on spring break; his mother-in-law, Marian Robinson; and Eleanor Kaye Wilson, his daughters' godmother. They are to go to Santiago, Chile, on Monday and El Salvador on Tuesday. Michelle Obama has her own schedule of events in Brazil, Chile and El Salvador, primarily emphasizing education of youth.