“The soybean farmers of our country are being hurt because China is, for ‘negotiating’ reasons only, not buying,” Trump said in a social media post on October 1.
For decades, the soybean trade has been a cornerstone of Sino-US agricultural cooperation.
As part of its 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization, China removed import quotas and imposed a uniform 3% tariff, resulting in a surge in US soybean imports.
In 2017, China imported 32.58 million tons of US soybeans, but the volume fell to 16.64 million tons in 2018 due to the Trump administration’s trade war, according to China Customs.
Imports later stabilized at around 20 million tons per year until the 2022 pandemic disrupted supplies and pushed China to diversify its sourcing to Brazil and Argentina.
Last year, the US shipped 985 million bushels of soybeans to China, accounting for 51% of the country’s total soybean exports.
“There’s no doubt that China’s halt of soybean imports has deeply affected the livelihoods of these farmers,” he says. »
