U.S.-China agricultural Trade huge business despite trade dispute
Agri-food industry leaders and government officials on Thursday highlighted a great potential for cooperation between the United States and China at a bilateral trade forum held in the U.S. state of California. Meanwhile, they called for proper handling on both sides of the trade dispute at the 2nd U.S.-China Agriculture Food Trade Forum held in the City of Industry. Cooperation in the agriculture and food sector has been solid despite the trade dispute, said Zhao Zhenge, general representative at the U.S. office of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), “Everyone of you present here made great efforts to keep the bilateral trade thriving over the past year.”
China was the third largest importer of U.S. agricultural products from 2009 to 2017.
Data by the American agricultural society show the U.S.-initiated tariff war against China and other factors have led U.S. agricultural exports to China to fall 20 percent in the first half of 2019, with soybean inventories hitting a record 49 million tonnes on June 1 and prices down 9 percent.
“With a large population and fast increasing income, the growing demand of Chinese (market) means huge business opportunities for American agriculture,” said Zhao in his speech at the forum.
“The interests of the two sides are deeply intertwined, and levying tariffs or even economic ‘decoupling’ is not in line with it,” he noted.