[China’s move was welcomed on Friday by the Trump administration, which said it would help ease tensions ahead of the next round of talks.]
By Alexandra Stevenson
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Soybean
and corn fields in Bristol, Wis. United States soybean exports have been
hurt
by Chinese
tariffs. Credit Tannen Maury/EPA, via Shutterstock
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BEIJING — China will exempt some American soybeans, pork and other
agricultural products from additional tariffs, state media reported on Friday,
in the latest move by Beijing to ease trade tensions with the United States.
The news came after President
Trump delayed the next round of tariff increases on Chinese goods until after
trade talks that are scheduled for early October, and officials in Washington
confirmed China had made its first major purchase of American soybeans in
months.
China’s decision to pull back
on some new tariffs was another sign that the world’s two largest economies are
trying to ease tensions in a trade war that has rocked global markets and cast
a pall over the prospects for global growth. It also came as the country’s
leadership faces challenges on several fronts, including an economic slowdown
and civil unrest in Hong Kong.
State media provided few
details on Friday, but China Central Television, the nation’s official
broadcaster, cited Mr. Trump’s decision to delay the next round of tariff
increases on Chinese products by two weeks. On Wednesday, he said they will now
take effect on Oct. 15.
China’s move was welcomed on
Friday by the Trump administration, which said it would help ease tensions
ahead of the next round of talks.
“The really good part about
this is there is some relaxation in the air with China exempting some tariffs.
We’ve returned the favor and the negotiations are moving along nicely,” Larry
Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, said on Friday.
“And as the president said
yesterday, we’re always available for a good deal.”
Some farmers in the United
States have been hit hard by tariffs imposed by Beijing on American goods, a
retaliation against the White House’s mounting tariffs on Chinese goods. The
2020 presidential election is approaching, and the farming vote was critical in
some of the states that supported Mr. Trump in 2016. At Thursday’s Democratic
presidential debate, several candidates attacked Mr. Trump over the trade war’s
impact on farmers.
Mr. Trump’s advisers say they
will continue to press China for a transformative deal, but many are also eager
to calm tensions and avoid further tariff increases that might rock equity
markets this year. They have considered striking an arrangement that would walk
back the latest tranche of Mr. Trump’s tariffs on $112 billion of Chinese goods
— leaving tariffs on at least $250 billion of products in place — in return for
substantial purchases of soybeans, pork and other products, people familiar
with the matter said. It’s not yet clear that China will make such an official
offer at the bargaining table, however.
The easing of agricultural
tariffs could also help China with its own problems. Food inflation has been
rising as the Chinese authorities battle an epidemic of swine fever, which has
forced China to cull more than a million pigs. Pork is a staple of the Chinese
diet.
But Friday’s state media
reports, brief in length and substance, left unclear whether China was willing
to substantially roll back tariffs it had previously placed on American goods.
It began to stop imports of American agricultural products a year ago as trade
tensions escalated.
The National Development and
Reform Commission and the Ministry of Commerce, the two sources of Friday’s
news, did not respond to requests for comment on Friday, which was a holiday in
China.
In further evidence of
thawing relations, the United States Department of Agriculture said Friday that
private exporters were reporting 204,000 metric tons of new soybeans sales to
China — the first major purchases in months after Chinese state-supported
industries stopped buying American soybeans and other agricultural products. On
Thursday, officials from the U.S. Soybean Export Council said they had learned
that China made purchases of 600,000 to one million metric tons of soybeans.
And on Wednesday, China
published a short list of products to be spared from retaliatory tariffs on
American-made goods, including cancer drugs, lubricants and pesticides. But
those items are less central to the trade fight. Chinese purchases of American
agricultural products make up a significant chunk of its imports from the
United States.
The trade war, with a rising
number of goods being taxed, not only has pushed prices higher for businesses
and consumers in China and the United States, but risks a more permanent chill
in relations between the two countries.
Trade tensions worsened in
recent months following the collapse of talks in May. But senior officials of
both governments are set to meet in Washington early next month amid rising
economic worries in both countries
At a news conference on
Thursday, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Commerce indicated that the
government was considering making concessions in order to pave the way for more
trade talks.
Chinese companies were
beginning to make inquiries about purchases of American soybeans and pork, said
the spokesman, Gao Feng.
“We hope the two sides would
move in the same direction, take practical actions and provide a sound environment
for the trade talks, and it would be good for the two countries, and for the
world,” Mr. Gao said.
Ana Swanson and Catie
Edmondson contributed reporting from Washington.
