US-CHINA talks need more Beans, news by Hebei Longsheng
| More than a hill of beans needed to complete China-U.S. talks The latest round of China-U.S. trade talks do not appear to have made significant progress. The seven areas of technical discussions have been covered before while the U.S. also continues to focus on the Chinese trade surplus. A significant commitment to purchase U.S. energy, agricultural and manufactured products remained on the table. Yet, with a $302.6 billion trade surplus held by China in 2018 there would need to be a 2.2x increase in Chinese imports to close the gap. The inclusion of currency discussions suggests there may be concerns that increased purchases may be associated with the sale of dollarized assets by China. The announcement of a five million ton purchase order for soybeans is helpful but small in context. Total U.S. exports of soybeans averaged 4.3 million tons per month in the past year, or $2.11 billion. Encouragingly though a heads-of-state round of talks are scheduled for the end of February, with ministerial discussions due between now and then. |
