When the new White House tenant takes office, China will be much more prepared to absorb the impact of customs tariffs than it was during the last “trade war” with the United States. Since 2018, the country has been diversifying its supply chains, particularly with regard to food, in order to avoid suffering from rising taxes.
Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have a protectionist stance towards China and are expected to impose tariffs on Chinese products, but Trump promises to be more aggressive: he announced tariffs of 60% for all products imported from China.
According to Chinese customs data, cited by Reuters, the share of US soybean imports fell from 40% in 2016 to 18% this yearincreasing the share of soybeans imported from Brazil from 46% to 76%. Last year, Brazil even surpassed the USA as the main supplier of corn.
But it wasn’t just Brazil that Beijing started buying more: since then agricultural imports from Argentina, Ukraine and Australia have increased, with Chinese domestic production itself being reinforcedsays Reuters.
China is the world’s largest importer of agricultural products such as soybeans and corn – a decreased dependence on the US gives Beijing greater ability to retaliate against future tariffs. The reduction in imports of these products from the USA began in 2018, about a year after Donald Trump took office and after the Republican imposed heavy tariffs on Chinese products. At that point, China retaliated with 25% tariffs on American soybeans, beef and pork, wheat, corn and sorghum.
Source: www.jornaldenegocios.pt
