US-CHINA TRADE DEAL UNRAVELING DUE TO PANDEMIC

President Trump’s rosy projections after the trade deal with China last year has been dashed somehow by the failure of Beijing to ramp purchases of farm goods as US farmers swim in red ink due to reduced demand, forcing dairy farmers to dump milk and vegetable producers to use their crops as fertilizer.

On May 8, 2020, Bloomberg reported that a dismayed Trump was not convinced that the phone call among Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, US Trade Representative Robert Lightizer and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He would rev up Chinese imports from the sputtering US, telling Fox News that he was having a rough time with China.

In the deal with US, China vowed to buy at least $200 billion of US goods and services in 2020 and 2021, much higher than its purchases in 2017, scrap equity caps in insurance, securities and futures by April 1 and go hard against violators of intellectual property rights.

Thus far, China did not meet its target of $76.7 billion increase in imports from the US, with the figure actually sinking by 5.9% in the January-April 2020 period and buying only six cargoes of soybeans last week and 600,000 metric tons (MT) of corn, thus compounding the problems of US farmers in Iowa and in the Midwest who have lost more than $1-trillion as higher tariffs imposed by Trump stopped Chinese imports.