Trade

Last week, Reuters News reported that, “Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday reduced pork import tariffs as the government seeks to address a domestic shortage by ramping up purchases from abroad.”

This week, the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) released its 2020 U.S. Agricultural Export Yearbook, a statistical summary of U.S. agricultural commodity exports.  Today’s update includes highlights from the report, with a focus on soybeans, corn and pork.

Reuters writer Dominique Patton reported late last week that, “A wave of African swine fever outbreaks this year has wiped out at least 20% of the breeding herd in northern China, industry sources and analysts said, exceeding expected losses and raising fears about the potential for further impact in the south.”

Reuters News reported last week that, “China reported an outbreak of African swine fever in Xinjiang region, the agriculture ministry said on Wednesday.”

Last week, New York Times writers Vivian Yee and Peter S. Goodman reported that, “Trying to convey the sheer scale of the nearly quarter-mile-long container ship that has been stuck in the Suez Canal since Tuesday evening, some news outlets compared it to the length of four soccer fields. Others simply called it gigantic.”

Writing recently in the CARD (Center for Agricultural and Rural Development) Agricultural Policy Review, from Iowa State University (“Is China’s Hog Rebuilding Complete? Reconciling Inventory and Price Data“), Dermot Hayes, Xi He, and Wendong Zhang stated that, “The African swine fever (ASF) outbreak that started in August 2018 wiped out 40% of China’s sow inventory.

William Mauldin reported in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal that, “High-level talks between the Biden administration and Beijing that veered into acrimony put the U.S.-China rivalry in sharp relief, complicating efforts by the two powers to erect guardrails and keep tensions from spiraling further.”

Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday that, “China, the biggest corn consumer after the U.S., is still short of the feed grain, and more overseas purchases are likely.”

Earlier this month, Bloomberg News reported that, “African swine fever is re-emerging in Asia, threatening to upend efforts to replenish national herds after the virus killed tens of millions of pigs in the region and created a huge shortage of meat protein.”

Wall Street Journal writer Jesse Newman reported on Wednesday that, “China is once again the U.S.’s chief customer for agricultural goods, three years after the start of a bruising trade war that prompted American farmers to try to wean themselves off their biggest market.”

On Thursday, the Senate Finance Committee held a confirmation hearing for U.S. Trade Representative nominee Katherine C. Tai.

Financial Times writers Emiko Terazono and Sun Yu reported last week that, “Record purchases by China have sent corn prices soaring since the end of last year, leaving farmers and analysts pondering how long the surge can be sustained.”

Financial Times writer Emiko Terazono reported last week that, “Global food prices have reached their highest in almost seven years, further raising the spectre of food inflation and hunger at a time when the Covid-19 pandemic continues to hit economies around the world.”

Last week, Reuters writers Mark Weinraub and Karl Plume reported that, “China booked its biggest purchase of U.S. corn yet, the U.S. Agriculture Department said on Friday, buying more at once than any country except the Soviet Union 30 years ago, as it tries to meet a surge in demand for animal feed.”

Bloomberg writers Kim Chipman and Nicholas Larkin reported this week that, “Corn prices in Chicago reached a seven-year high with China’s appetite for the grain stoking global supply concerns.”

Late last week, Aime Williams and Justin Jacobs reported at The Financial Times Online that, “China has purchased less than three-fifths of the US goods projected under the “phase one” trade deal that paused a tariff dispute between the two countries a year ago, posing another challenge for the administration of Joe Biden in its relations with Beijing.”

Earlier this month, in its Livestock and Poultry: World Markets and Trade report, the USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) stated that, “Driven by higher estimates for pork, the China total meat import forecasts for both 2020 and 2021 are revised 4 and 1 percent higher, respectively. While pork import growth slowed in the fourth quarter of 2020, it nevertheless exceeded expectations and results in a more bullish outlook for 2021.”

Reuters writers Hallie Gu and Dominique Patton reported last week that, “China’s soybean imports jumped 13% to an annual record in 2020, customs data showed on Thursday, after crushers ramped up purchases amid improved margins and healthy demand from the country’s rapidly recovering pig sector.”

Bloomberg News reported earlier this week that, “China approved two genetically modified corn varieties from Bayer AG and Syngenta AG for imports as demand for animal feed surges.”

Last week, Bloomberg News reported that, “China is far away from meeting its U.S. trade-deal commitments, with the latest data showing it’s imported just over half of the American goods it promised to buy in the first year of the phase-one agreement.”