Comment on China has been stockpiling a key US crop before Trump takes office

China has been stockpiling a key US crop before Trump takes office

Ueslei Marcelino/BrazilChina is loading up on soybeans amid US trade war fears.China's soybean imports rose 6.5% in 2024, hedging against potential Trump trade policies.Intensifying US-China trade tensions could hit the soybean trade, impacting US farmers and rural economies.China is stockpiling more than semiconductor chips amid its trade war with the US.Last year, China imported a record 105.03 million metric tons of soybeans — a key crop that was embroiled in Donald Trump's tariff war with China during his first presidency.China's import of US soybeans, in particular, also spiked last year, rising 6.5% from 2023, according to Reuters' calculations of official customs data.Buyers from China — the world's largest soybean consumers — were likely stocking up on the crop to hedge any geopolitical risks ahead of Trump's second term, analysts said.Trump has threatened to put 60% tariffs on all Chinese goods during his second presidential term, igniting fears of an intensification in trade tensions."If the US ramps up tariffs on Chinese imports, China could target US agricultural imports as retaliatory tariff countermeasures," Rajiv Biswas, an international economist and the author of "Asian Megatrends," told Business Insider."US soybean imports are likely to be a key target for China's retaliatory tariff measures due to the very large scale of China's soybean imports from the US," he added.The power of the soybean marketThe US is the world's second-largest soybean producer after Brazil.

 

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