Mr Manuel Garibay, a sales manager at Royal Ridge Fruits, a Washington state cherry exporter, checking for US election updates at the China International Import Expo in Shanghai on Nov 6.SHANGHAI – Mr Manuel Garibay travelled from the American north-west to Shanghai in early November, hoping to sell dried cherries to Chinese consumers.
Heavily exposed to the Chinese market and seen to form part of Trump’s support base, the farm sector has been a handy target for Beijing to retaliate against US tariffs.American farmers lost over US$27 billion in exports from mid-2018 to 2019 – mostly from China, the US agriculture department estimated.“US soybeans and corn are prime targets for tariffs,” wrote economists from the American Soybean Association and National Corn Growers Association in October.
China is the US’ largest overseas market for agricultural products. The sector accounted for a fifth of total US exports of goods to China in 2023.US farm exports to China at risk from Trump’s tariff threats Analysts in China say while US agriculture could get caught in the cross hairs of a renewed trade war, the situation today differs from that in 2018.
Chinese buyers of farm products – many of which are state-owned companies – could simply choose to order from other suppliers even without counter-tariffs, said the associate research fellow at the university’s Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies.Xi’s key players to lead China in another Trump trade fight