Chinese shopping: The strong demand from China, which has recovered faster than most other countries from the Covid-19 pandemic, has helped bolster the USDA’s forecast.
For the period October-December, exports to China “reached a historic high of $ 14.4 billion, mainly due to strong loads of soybeans, maize, sorghum, wheat, cotton and chicken legs,” the USDA said. “Outstanding sales of many of these products remain high, with wheat sales at unprecedented levels.”
The 2021 financial year began on October 1 and thus includes the past three months and 20 days in the office of former President Donald Trump. US exports to China are also likely to set a new record for the calendar year 2021, which will hamper an unexpected slump.
Phase one agreement: The numbers are a partial justification for Trump, who signed a phase-one trade agreement with China in January 2020, which is largely aimed at boosting U.S. farm exports. But Beijing’s purchases under the deal were still below expectations.
U.S. officials say China has pledged to buy about $ 20 billion worth of U.S. farmland in 2020 and about $ 20 billion in 2021. U.S. farmers’ exports to China doubled to about $ 26.4 billion last year, but have missed the first phase goal.
China was the largest overseas market for U.S. farm products before Trump took office in 2017. U.S. agricultural exports to China that year amounted to $ 19.5 billion, compared to $ 21.4 billion in 2016, the last year of the Barack Obama administration.
After Trump began imposing tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods, Beijing retaliated by imposing duties on U.S. farm exports. U.S. agricultural exports to China collapsed and dropped to $ 9.1 billion in 2018.
Now China is once again the export market for American agricultural goods, USDA said.
What’s next: The Biden government is reviewing Trump’s phase one agreement and the tariffs it has imposed on more than $ 350 billion worth of Chinese goods. Biden’s nominee for the U.S. Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, may face questions on these topics in her confirmation hearing from the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday.