US farmers sign big deals at CIIE expo, easing concerns about size of potential trade war

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‘Agricultural products are an important part of bilateral trade between China and the US,’ AmCham Shanghai says

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Visitors at the CIIE event. Photo: Reuters

Daniel Renin Shanghai

Published: 6:00am, 11 Nov 2024Updated: 10:58am, 11 Nov 2024

Agricultural firms from the US reported signing major deals at the world’s largest trade fair in Shanghai, and they said exports of soybeans and sorghum to China would maintain their growth momentum even after a White House power transfer in January.

A total of 31 American companies signed deals worth US$711 million with Chinese buyers during the six-day China International Import Expo (CIIE), up 41 per cent from a year earlier, according to the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.

“Agricultural products are an important part of bilateral trade between China and the US. We hope both governments will actively explore new paths to bolster the economic ties,” AmCham Shanghai president Eric Zheng said on Sunday. “We expect the two economies to keep playing complementary roles to each other [in the trading of agricultural products].”

Zheng said business discussions between the delegation, the CIIE and Chinese buyers will continue over the next year, which will likely yield larger transactions.

Last year, the American agricultural delegation, led by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and AmCham Shanghai, signed deals worth US$505 million at the CIIE, and they secured another US$3 billion in purchase orders from mainland buyers over the subsequent 12 months, Zheng said.

It is the second time that the USDA and AmCham Shanghai co-hosted a pavilion that showed off produce and technology from California, Idaho and Georgia.

The increase in business at the CIIE is a bright spot in the economic relationship between Beijing and Washington, despite worries that a trade war will escalate when Donald Trump begins his second term as US president. On the campaign trail, he said he was considering tariffs of 60 per cent or more on Chinese goods, far higher than duties of 7.5 per cent to 25 per cent applied during his first term, which ended in 2021.