Head of busy U.S. port says China to miss ag target
The head of the U.S.’s busiest port said China is on track to buy less than onethird of the American agricultural products it promised to purchase in 2020, the first year of a trade pact between the world’s two biggest economies.
“The phase-one trade deal set lofty expectations for purchases that had not been witnessed by American agriculture producers ever — what we’ve seen so far is a requirement to buy $36 billion worth of goods, and we may edge our way towards $10 billion,” Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said on a webcast Thursday. “We’ve got so much to catch up on in the back half of this year.”
The Asian nation has recently accelerated purchases of U.S. corn and soybeans, but the transactions may be insufficient to help it reach the target to buy $36.5 billion of agricultural goods this year, 52% more than in 2017, as it pledged in the Jan. 15 agreement.
Negotiators are supposed to meet in coming days to review progress on the deal meant to cool tensions in a more than two-year tariff war. The coronavirus crisis and the deterioration in U.S.-China relations on everything from tech security to Hong Kong has left trade a rare area of cooperation. President Donald Trump has indicated that he and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer are pleased with China’s recent purchases.
“They are giving the Midwest, our farmers, among the largest orders they’ve ever seen,” Trump said during a press briefing this week. “Somebody told me today — Bob Lighthizer said about 40% of what they’re selling now is going to China. So maybe they’re trying to make me change my mind a little bit, because you know my attitude on China, and it’s not — it hasn’t been very good.”
Soybean futures in the U.S. recently traded near $8.96 a bushel, down 3.6% since the deal was signed.
Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian reiterated at a regular briefing in Beijing on Friday that China is meeting its obligations but urged the U.S. to respect Chinese companies. Washington has recently cracked down on businesses including TikTok and WeChat.
“It takes two to cooperate and overcome the difficulties,” Zhao said. “We hope the U.S. can stop its restrictions and discriminatory measures on Chinese companies to create conditions for the implementation of the phase one trade deal.”
Zhao says information on high-level talks will be released “in due course.”
Sitting at the confluence of the dispute is the Port of Los Angeles, a key gateway for U.S.-Asia trade that has seen tariffs throw buying patterns off kilter, followed by the pandemic’s disruption of seasonal flows of supply and demand.