Detail

China (Mainland)

Oilseeds, oils and meals

Soybeans, other oilcrops and derived products

01/05/2019

Trade

Comprehensive trade negotiations

From May 2019 to October 2019: Moved forward discontinuously with trade talks that commenced in mid-2018. In May, following a temporary halt in negotiations, the two countries introduced additional trade measures affecting their respective imports: while the US raised import tariffs on USD 200 billion worth of Chinese goods from 10 percent to 25 percent, China increased taxation on US imports worth USD 60 billion to 10–25 percent. In both cases, commodities affected include a number of oilcrops and derived products, transactions of which, however, have been modest in recent years. Following a temporary truce, in August, negotiations stalled again, leading both countries to announce implementation of additional retaliatory tariffs on each other’s exports from September. In the case of China, the list of commodities affected would include US-origin soybeans, which would bear additional tariffs of 5–10 percent. When trade talks resumed in mid-September, the US pledged to postpone an increase in retaliatory tariffs scheduled for October, while China committed to resume purchases of US agricultural goods, including soybeans. More specifically, China’s trade authorities successively allocated special import quotas for soybeans – comprising waivers of the relevant retaliatory tariffs – to a number of state-run, private as well as foreign-owned businesses. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), by mid-October, soybean sales to China (for delivery in the 2019/20 marketing year) had reached 5.7 million tonnes, compared with to 1.0 million tonnes a year earlier. However, with comprehensive trade negotiations still under way, China refrained from committing to a specific, time-bound volume of US-origin soybean purchases.

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