In the first face-to-face meeting between President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China, the two leaders agreed to a 100-day effort to improve trade relations between the world’s two largest economies. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the president “raised serious concerns about the impact of China’s industrial, agricultural, technology, and cyber policies on U.S. jobs and exports.”
“The president underscored the need for China to take concrete steps to level the playing field for American workers, stressing repeatedly the need for reciprocal market access,” Tlllerson told reporters at the end of the two-day meeting in Florida.
Although officials reported no advances, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said an agreement to set a 100-day target for action “is a very big sea change in the pace of discussions … directionally, the objective is to increase our exports to China and to reduce the trade deficits we have with them.”
Ahead of the meeting, three dozen senators wrote Trump, asking him to press China to re-open its market to U.S. beef, banned since 2003. China agreed last September to allow imports, but technical issues have not been resolved.
The United States filed two WTO cases against China last year, complaining that farm subsidies and trade rules unfairly deny billions of dollars of export sales to U.S. farmers. Both of those challenges accuse China of failing to honor commitments to free trade that it made when it joined the WTO. In addition, U.S. officials have urged China to act more expeditiously to approve new strains of GE corn, soybeans and other crops for import.
China is the largest market for U.S. farm exports, forecast for $22.3 billion this fiscal year, or one-sixth of total ag exports, estimated at $136 billion. U.S. sales to China have increased 125 percent in the past decade, according to USDA chief economist Robert Johansson. China accounts for two-thirds of world soybean trade. It also is a leading market for cotton, pork and dairy.
As a candidate, Trump threatened high tariffs on Chinese-made goods, worrying U.S. farm groups about the possibility of disruption of sales. Exports generate 20 percent of U.S. farm income, which has slumped since 2013 with little expectation of recovery in the near term.
To listen to a CQ Roll Call podcast about the Trump-Xi meeting, proposals to revise NAFTA and the trade agenda in general, click here.