Rousseff Puts Spy Scandal behind Her with US Visit

At the time Rousseff called off her October 2013 visit, the chill between the Western hemisphere's two largest economies was the worst diplomatic fallout to date from Edward Snowden's leaked trove of embarrassing US intelligence secrets.

Both sides have emphasized that the new trip -- a five-day tour that has been labelled an "official visit" rather than the top-tier "state visit" she postponed -- shows the countries have moved past the damaging revelation that the National Security Agency spied on Rousseff's cell phone communications and Internet use.

"We've put that behind us," Brazilian diplomat Carlos Paranhos told a press conference in Brasilia Thursday. He said the trip came about after months of high-level contacts, including direct conversations between Rousseff and President Barack Obama.

"This visit I think really does indicate the extent to which we have turned the page and are moving forward," said senior Obama foreign policy aide Ben Rhodes.

The trip, which will take Rousseff to New York, Washington and San Francisco, comes as Brazil's first woman president faces a crisis at home, AFP reported.

Rousseff, 67, has seen her popularity slump to 10 percent just six months into her second term. She has been hit by an economy on the brink of recession and a multi-billion-dollar corruption scandal at state oil giant Petrobras that has tainted her party.

"The internal importance of this trip (in Brazil) is much greater than the external importance. At this point in time, it's much more important for Brazil than for the United States," said Carlos Melo, a political scientist at Brazilian business institute Insper.

"A picture of Dilma with Obama will be politically significant in Brazil. Symbolically, it communicates a president who is more open to the world, to dialogue."

Besides sitting down with Obama over the course of four days in Washington, Rousseff will meet with American business and financial leaders, seeking to attract investment and convince them her government's $23 billion in spending cuts will soon right the world's seventh-largest economy.

In New York, she will attend a business conference and seek to drum up interest in her government's recently announced $64-billion infrastructure spending package.

Finance Minister Joaquim Levy, a University of Chicago-trained economist, is going along to present his plans to get the country out of the 1.2-percent economic contraction it is forecasting for this year.

The United States is Brazil's largest investor and second-largest trading partner after China. Last year bilateral trade totalled $62 billion, according to Brasilia, with a balance of $8 billion in favor of the US.