Beijing Won’t Raise US Agri Purchases Until Year Two Of Trade Deal

Thursday’s big trade news isn’t actually all that impressive. According to Bloomberg, Beijing has offered to buy $20 billion in American agricultural products a year if ‘Phase One’ of President Trump’s trade deal is eventually ratified. There is just one problem: that’s what China was buying in 2017 before President Trump started slapping tariffs on Chinese goods.

So China promises to buy $20BN… or what it was buying in agri products before trade war started pic.twitter.com/c3Ww0byjog

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 24, 2019

The escalation in purchases wouldn’t come until the second year after all punitive tariffs are removed (i.e. when Trump may or may notbe president): at that point, those purchases could rise to $40-$50 billion, according to BBG’s sources, who didn’t offer any specifics about the timing beyond that.

As we have reported, Beijing has already started ramping up purchases, issuing waivers for 10 million tons of soybeans bought this week, while it considers approving another 4-5 million tons of wheat, corn, sorghum and other grains.

Trump recently boasted that Beijing would buy $50 billion in American agricultural products, but he didn’t offer a time frame during which these purchases would take place.

In other trade news, White House trade advisor Peter Navarro appeared on Fox Business to discuss how a new Chinese law to protect foreign business and intellectual property will affect “phase one” of the trade deal. He added that if Beijing steals American IP, the US can always retaliate.