Dueto many different benefits of trading goods , services, and capital amongvarious countries across the globe, International trade has prospered over theyears. Over the last half of the 20th century, the benefits ofinternational trade have been the major driver of growth.
The internationaltrade accounts for a good part of a country’s gross domestic product. Trade isthe major contributor for countries to reduce poverty. Countries have becomeprosperous due to international trade and have the power to control the worldeconomy. For developing countries, international trade is an important sourceof revenue. The United States does the most agricultural trade with China,doing so has changed the economy of the United States in ways people couldnt evenimagine. The Chinese market has been animportant factor for the growth of agriculture over the past decade. Onlyspecific sectors within agriculture have been targeted. Over the past decade,agricultural exports to China have significantly risen from the United States.
That being said, China is now the fastest growing along with highest value ofexports of the United States farm and food products. China has become theUnited States strongest agricultural trading partners competing with Canada,Japan, and Mexico. China surpassed Canada and is now the top U.S. market andcontinues to remain in that position. Chinas share of agricultural exports hasincreased significantly. When you consider the overall growth inagricultural trade, its even larger than you would expect due to the agriculturalexports tripling. The U.
S. has facedmany challenges with the tremendous expansion of agricultural trade with China.The United States is a high quality supplier of agriculture and food products,making the U.
S. very desirable to the Chinese consumers. There are manyincentives for both countries to address the issues of the size of the agriculturaltrade relationship, along with the agricultural exports which support China’sfood security through trade. Between the two countries positive results havebeen achieved during recent negotiations and engagements. China has policiesthat promote agricultural self-sufficiency and protect domestic industrieslimiting the U.S. exports. The government policies and productive capabilitiesof both countries strongly influence the patterns within the U.
S. and China’s agriculture trade. Chineseagriculture is directed towards a policy of self-sufficiency in a fewcommodities such as wheat, corn, rice,and pork. The vast majority of the past decades China has been self-sufficientin these commodities. China has achieved this by yielding the production ofother commodities to the rest of the world while relying on agricultural tradeto obtain their agricultural requirements. A major beneficiary of the trade isthe U.S.
soybean market. The U.S.
exporters have some hesitation with tradingwith China because of China’s lack of regulatory transparency,inconsistent product review and approval processes, and erratic distribution ofimport quotas all distort trade. The United States feels that they are not ableto achieve its full potential in exports because the environment has preventedit. Expansion Opportunities continue to occur within China’s food andagricultural markets. Growth in China’s food consumption isprojected to overtake its domestic output by more than two percent per year resultingin an improved demand for imports. China is pursuing a lot of regulatory andeconomic reforms to bolster its domestic agricultural production and efficiencyin order to address the growing demand for food. These reforms are designed tobe market-oriented and consumer-driven according to Chinese representatives.
Inorder for the U.S. to avoid unwarranted restrictions with the Chinese onexports, the U.S. ag stakeholders must be fully engaged. Being fully engagedwith each other, will help encourage policies that are equally useful to thetrade partnership between the two countries. In thelast couple of years many agricultural goods gained first time market access tochina, this has been significant for the United States total exports. There isa considerable increase in Chinas imports of grains, cotton, and soybeans, whilethe U.
S. exports grow tremendously for diary and horticultural goods creatingfuture opportunities within the consumer oriented products sector. Over thepast 10 years, the United States value of agricultural exports have more thantripled. Due to the trade partnership being strong between the two countries,the U.S. ag producers are well placed to capitalize on China’s economicdevelopment and consumer demand into the future. Half of the total value ofU.
S. agricultural exports are dominated by soybeans. In recent years the growth of the U.
S. farm exportsto china have plateaued, there are many opportunities for long term growth andtrade expansion in China. Chinas growing middle class and higher incomes haveincreased the Chinese ability to diversify their diets and eat protein rich andmore expensive food. The U.S. exports to China have been dominated by bulkcommodities, since china is going through a severe cropland shortage.
They willthen process those commodities for domestic consumption or even for export. Chinahas recently had a booming demand for luxury items and processed foods, it hascreated so many new opportunities for the United States. Some of the productsthat are being demanded are oils, fats, flour, meal, and sweeteners, andconsumer-oriented products such as processed food, eggs, meat, and dairy.Exports of consumer-oriented products grew 150 percent over the same period. TheU.S. ag markets are very product specific, they have a high concentration inlivestock, cotton and soybeans.
Roughly 60 percent of US soybean exports aretraded with China. Over the past few years there have been substantial changesin the ag trade. Cotton has actually had the largest change over the past 5 orso years, the market for cotton has been cut nearly in half of what it used tobe. While cotton is being cut in half the tobacco, grain and feed trade exportshave roughly doubled over the same time. While the dairy exports have been increasinglivestock and meat products have stayed relatively the same. China has been themost consistent and largest buyer of soybeans for several years. China has beenthe major market for soybeans.
The vast majority of the soybean trade ispurchased for processed soybean products such as oil and meal, the remainingsoybean trade is for the bean itself. Similar to soybeans, china prefers topurchase the processed corn products over the corn directly. Compared to thesoybean market China has been a relatively small and inconsistent buyer of corn.China has been a great country to export our agricultural goods to, tradingwith them has come with many positive outcomes for the United States. Internationaltrade is the reason for increase in the economy and keeping the poverty levellow. International trade has made many countries become prosperous and able tocontrol the worlds economy.
Luckily for the United States we were fortunateenough to have China be one of our best countries to do trade with. Developingcountries have prospered by having international trade be the most importantsource of income.
