US farmers cannot afford to lose the Chinese market, but farmers in China will be able to withstand the impact of American tariffs, according to a top agriculture official in Beijing.
Han Jun, vice-minister of agriculture and rural affairs, said China’s retaliatory tariffs on American products – the latest of which took effect on Saturday – now covered “virtually all US agricultural product exports to China”, warning that US farmers could lose the Chinese market for good.
“If the US doesn’t lift all additional tariffs [levied on Chinese products], bilateral agricultural product trade between China and the US, including soybean trade, will never go back to normal,” Han told the official Xinhua news agency in an interview.
“If the US loses China’s market, it will be very difficult for the US to regain it.”
Han, who is also a top policymaker as deputy head of the Office of the Central Leading Group for Rural Affairs, said the two rounds of aid offered by US President Donald Trump to American farmers would not be enough to cover their potential losses if they lost the Chinese market.
But he said Chinese farmers would be able to weather the impact of American tariffs.
In terms of the soybean trade, while China’s imports from the United States had plunged, it could find ways to diversify its sources, including encouraging Chinese farmers to grow more of the crop and buying more from other countries, Han said.
Soybean is the main source of China’s cooking oil and an important source of animal feed. In 2017, China imported 95 million tonnes of soybean in total – or nearly 90 per cent of its domestic demand. The country imported 32.8 million tonnes of soybean from the US that year, or about a third of total imports.
Last year, China’s soybean imports fell 7.9 per cent to 88 million tonnes, while imports from the US nearly halved to 16.6 million tonnes. Soybean imports from Brazil, meanwhile, surged 30 per cent to 66 million tonnes last year – or three-quarters of China’s total imports, according to Chinese customs data.
Han said Chinese agricultural product exports to the US would shrink further after Washington raised tariffs on US$200 billion worth of Chinese products to 25 per cent from 10 per cent last month. But he said China could manage the situation by diversifying its exports to Southeast Asia, Japan and Europe, according to the Xinhua report on Saturday.
In addition, Han said rising food inflation in China, a growing concern among consumers, had been caused by seasonal factors and was “not directly linked to
”. He said a spike in pork prices was caused by the African swine fever outbreak but it would not get out of control because the government had already introduced measures to encourage pig farming.
“Many countries are willing to export more pork to China,” he added.
The agriculture official said the government would also ensure migrant workers had jobs amid the trade war, by providing them with training and giving them the chance to develop new skills and create new businesses.
Han’s interview with Xinhua came as Beijing is seeking to reassure the country that the government can manage the impact of a deepening trade rift with the US.
Beijing on Sunday
blaming Washington for stalled trade talks but said it remained open to negotiations in the future.
Trade tensions between the two countries escalated last month after talks broke down, with the Trump administration increasing tariffs and China retaliating with its own duties on US$60 billion of US products. As well as the new tariffs on US$200 billion of Chinese products, the US has also threatened to impose a 25 per cent levy on the remaining US$325 billion of goods from China that are not subject to tariffs. That measure could be enforced by the end of June.
