Page 16 - Export or Bust eBook

Trump’s latest assault on the trade front, however, is
unilateral punitive tariffs on Chinese exports. He
started more modestly in January by slapping tariffs on
imported washing machines, solar cells and modules,
which incited China into initiating an antidumping
investigation on U.S. sorghum exports. He later
declared a 25 percent tariff, aimed mostly at China, on
steel imports, and recently followed up with two
separate proposals for punitive duties of $50 billion
and $100 billion a year on a long list of Chinese
exports.

More recently, President Donald Trump, who was
angered that China matched his threat of $50
billion in tariffs, vowed that the U.S. would tack on
tariffs for an additional $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. If China retaliated again, Trump
warned, he would add tariffs to another $200 billion of imports from the country, bringing the total to
$450 billion.

The U.S. imports about $505 billion worth of Chinese products; China only buys about $130 billion of
U.S. goods – much of it agricultural commodities.

But China is intent on matching the U.S. in the
burgeoning trade war, and the U.S. ag and food
sectors could be in store for more pain than the 25
percent tariff the Chinese are threatening to put on
soybeans and corn.

It’s not as though U.S.-China trade hasn’t been

contentious and fraught with blocks against

American farm products since the late President
Nixon went to Beijing and began opening China’s

isolated economy 46 years ago.

“We could fill this room with trade complaints

about China ... but the simple fact is they do Chuck Conner, President NCFC

continue to buy,” said Chuck Conner, president of

the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) and former deputy secretary of agriculture, at the

recent Agri-Pulse Ag & Food Policy Summit.

Yet, the total has receded more than 20 percent in the past five years as exports of soybeans, cotton,
corn, milk powder and other products have slipped somewhat. Plus, China has banned all poultry since
2014, and it shut out U.S. beef for 14 years (until last June) because of mad cow disease. (Note that
agricultural imports from China have expanded gradually, to $10.7 billion last year.)

Indeed, agricultural trade with China has matured in recent decades into a jewel of U.S. foreign

commerce. Growth in farm exports to China since 2000 have multiplied more than eight-fold and totaled
$21.5 billion by value last year –15 percent of U.S. ag exports.

14 www.Agri-Pulse.com