Trump to China
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. President Trump plans to visit China next month and his U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer spoke recently about what to expect from the summit …
GREER … “I would characterize our economic and trade relationship as stable. The alternative, I don’t think is one that people want to deal with right now.”
Greer met with Chinese officials in Paris recently for pre-summit talks that touched on agriculture, critical minerals and managed trade …
GREER … “At the same time, we have to protect our national security. We have to protect our economic security. And so, we settled into a stable situation with the Chinese, where the United States continues to maintain substantial tariffs on Chinese goods—primarily on a lot of the advanced goods and a lot of the manufacturing.”
But other concessions resulted when the Chinese removed retaliatory tariffs on US soybeans, corn, wheat, sorghum and chicken, and began promised soybean buys.
Trump then imposed a temporary global tariff to replace those struck down by the Supreme Court, but the summit could end those against China …
GREER … “When we think about what to expect from the president’s meeting, we’re looking to maintain that stability. When we were with the Chinese in Paris, we talked about rare earths, we talked about moving forward, what stability looks like. We talked about a board of trade, a US-China board of trade.”
That board would find sectors where the U.S. and China could grow trade without compromising each other’s national security or critical supply chains.
