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China coming up short on Phase 1 commitments for 2020
The Phase One trade agreement with China will have been in effect for an entire year on Valentine’s Day and analysis by the American Farm Bureau shows export promises missed the mark.
“We only got about halfway there.”
As part of the deal, ag economist Veronica Nigh tells Brownfield China agreed to purchase $12.5 billion in agricultural products above what they bought in 2017 but according to export data, China fell short of their agreement by more than $6 billion dollars. To make up the difference, Nigh says, “Our exports need to be north of $45 billion in order to reach the goal. That’s a big number but last year China imported almost $170 billion from the world.”
She says also of concern are outstanding sales.
“We have about 11.5 million metric tons of corn sales outstanding to China, about a million metric tons of wheat, almost three million metric tons of beans, 2.3 million metric tons of sorghum, and then a lot of cotton, beef, and pork too,” she says.
In 2020, exports to China did increase by about 30 percent from the 2017 baseline and set records for some products included in the agreement like pork, poultry, tree nuts, hay, beef, peanuts, and pulses.
Nigh says existing tariffs on some U.S. goods also remain a barrier to meet goals in the final agreement.
