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President Donald Trump and China?s President Xi Jinping have reached a deal in principal to allow U.S. beef into China for the first time since a 2003 U.S. bovine spongiform encephalopathy outbreak.
However, an American Farm Bureau Federation official is viewing the development with caution.
AFBF Trade Adviser Dave Salmonsen says it would not be the first time China has said it?s lifting the ban on U.S. beef but failed to follow through. “
through on.?
Salmonsen hopes the new plan is a sign China?s regulatory red tape can now be resolved. The deal is part of China?s concessions at last week?s Trump-Xi summit, including allowing more U.S. access to financial sector investments.
And the summit produced more, “The only thing that came out of the summit was the commitment to a hundred day plan on trade meeting,” said Salmonsen. “In a hundred days, each side is supposed to come up with ideas that they can talk about further on how to address the trade issues between the two countries. Agriculture should play a good role in that.?
Salmonsen says a new Trump executive order for a country-by-country review of trade dumping and excess subsidies could also feed into the U.S.-China plan.
The AFBF official says both nations have issues they want to deal with, giving both opportunities for expanding bilateral trade in agriculture and other areas.
