US soybean groups plead for no new tariffs

hearing before the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) was convened to review China’s implementation of its commitments made five years ago in the US–China Phase One Agreement. The public hearing was a component of an active Section 301 investigation into China’s follow-through on the Phase One Agreement between the United States, where soybeans are the largest agricultural export, and China, the top market for US soybeans. The hearing reiterated points addressed in a collaborative letter to Jamieson Greer, who is the US Trade Representative, from the ASA and the US Soybean Export Council (USSEC). Gackle’s testimony asked the USTR to focus on enforcing existing commitments, thus keeping markets open for US soybean farmers and avoiding the mistakes of the last trade war. The letter compares US soybean exports to China against a pre-trade-war baseline of a record 36.1 million tonnes in 2016-17. Subsequently, the volume dropped to 28.2 million tonnes in 2017-18 (down 22% ...