Focus Continues on China Ag Commodity Buys

President Donald Trump said in Japan while announcing that China and the U.S. would return to the negotiating table that China was “going to be buying a tremendous amount of food and agricultural product, and they are going to start that very soon, almost immediately.” China, however, has made no official mention of a commitment to purchasing more U.S. ag products, and a person with knowledge of the event said Chinese Leader Xi Jinping made no such promise, according to Reuters. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Beijing did make commitments. “The Chinese side promised to make immediate and significant purchase of our agricultural products,” Navarro told Fox Business Network last week. So far, the only purchases were a sale of 544,000 tonnes of soybeans to China announced June 28 and a first-ever buy of U.S. rice by China. A spokesman for China’s Commerce Ministry, asked about whether Beijing committed to making future farm purchases, said: “There is huge room for cooperation,” spokesman Gao Feng said at a briefing last week. Beijing has said U.S. demands for Chinese purchases of U.S. goods should be reasonable. Chinese officials say that meant they must be based on domestic Chinese demand, rather than requiring China to divert purchases it now makes from other countries.