Agriculture: Impact on China would be ‘very limited’

“Levying additional tariffs will cause a great decrease in the export of US agricultural products to China,” he said. “But the impact on China is very limited, due to multiple import resources for China.”

“If a trade war breaks out between China and the US, many other countries will be willing and able to replace the US share of agricultural products in the Chinese market.”

Escalation of trade frictions between the two countries will result in higher costs for US agricultural products entering China, and the US share of the market will be significantly reduced, which will favor its competitors, he said.

“Once other countries have become reliable suppliers of agricultural goods for China, it will be very difficult for the US agricultural producers to regain the Chinese market,” he said.

Han said additional tariffs would cause a great decrease in China’s imports of soybeans from the US, the most important product of China-US agriculture trade.

But China is fully prepared and is capable of bridging the gap in reduced supply from the US through various measures, including increasing imports from other countries, promoting alternatives to animal feed made of soybeans in the poultry and husbandry industries to reduce domestic consumption of soybeans, and increasing domestic planting of soybeans, he said.

China relies on imports for most of its soybean consumption, with the US being the second-largest source of imports for China, after Brazil. Nearly 60 percent of all exported soybeans from the US went to China between 2015 and last year.

China could reduce imports of soybeans by more than 10 million metric tons this year — down by more than 10 percent from last year — because of expanding domestic production and the promotion of soybean substitutes, Chinese experts have predicted.

Han said China may also increase soybean imports from countries such as Brazil to meet its increasing demand.

Han also said China and the US had some fruitful negotiations on agricultural trade in June, during which the two sides reached initial agreements that China would increase imports of US agricultural products by a large margin. However, the US unilaterally provoked conflicts, so the negotiation achievements have become invalid, he said.

Despite the agreement by the EU to import more soybeans from the US, it is estimated that the EU could only import between 13 million and 14 million metric tons of soybeans each year over the next 10 years — compared with more than 30 million metric tons imported from the US by China last year — so it would be impossible for the US to handle all the soybeans in surplus, Han said.

“People of all walks of life in agriculture in the US have expressed worries over losing the Chinese market,” he said.