COVID-19 Causing Delays in China’s Ag Trade Purchases

BLACKSBURG, VA – While progress was being made on the U.S.-China Phase One trade deal with changes to agricultural regulations on non-tariff barriers, COVID-19 has raised questions about diversifying suppliers for world-wide trade. “Just as China was starting to offer tariff waivers to facilitate import purchases from the U.S.” explains Jason Grant, Virginia Tech associate professor of agricultural and applied economics, the global pandemic has shut the door on expected robust trade. First-quarter imports are running significantly behind the 2017 Phase One benchmark levels, he says, which means that China would have to purchase a lot of products later this year just to fulfill the deal. China currently has about 20 percent of the world’s population but only 0 percent of the world’s arable land so agricultural imports are vital to feeding the Chinese people.