Reuters-US farm leaders visiting China talk up agriculture trade
November 2, 2023 3 min 441 words
这则报道强调了美国农业领导人在中国访问期间，积极推动农业贸易的重要性，尽管两国政治关系紧张。代表美国11个农业组织的代表团，包括美国大豆出口委员会、美国粮食委员会和美国小麦协会，此次访问发生在中国粮食购买商与爱荷华州签署了数十亿美元的非约束性协议之后，主要购买大豆，这是自2017年以来的首次。尽管中美两国存在紧张局势和中国实行了三年的COVID-19边境控制，但这次访问仍然有望在本月在旧金山举行的习近平主席和乔·拜登总统的预计会晤之前取得进展。 报道中强调了农业在中美关系中的重要性，美国驻中国大使尼古拉斯·伯恩斯表示："尽管我们关系复杂，但农业是关系的稳定器。" 此外，美国粮食委员会代表还与中国商务部进行了会晤，提出了关于中国反倾销和反补贴措施对美国蒸馏干酒糟（DDGS）进口的问题。 这则报道突出了油籽和谷物作为美国对中国的最主要出口商品，去年达到254亿美元，远超过半导体等其他商品。然而，由于巴西大豆和玉米产量丰富，美国在中国市场份额上受到了冲击。中国一直在努力多样化进口来源，特别是在前美国总统唐纳德·特朗普发动贸易战后以及地缘政治风险上升的情况下，去年底开始向巴西玉米市场开放。与去年同期相比，巴西大豆进口增长了18%，而美国进口则增长了8%。巴西玉米已经达到中国近400万吨，还有更多货物在途中。 这次代表团是自2016年以来规模最大的一次，将前往上海参加下周的中国国际进口博览会，美国农业部首次自2018年举办该活动以来将在那里设立展馆。这表明尽管政治紧张，双方仍在寻求加强农业贸易关系。
Dozens of U.S. agriculture industry representatives gathered in Beijing on Thursday to meet Chinese counterparts amid growing U.S. efforts to bolster farm trade even as political ties between their two countries remain strained.
A delegation from 11 groups including the U.S. Soybean Export Council, U.S. Grains Council and U.S. Wheat Associates is visiting a week after Chinese grain buyers signed non-binding agreements in Iowa to buy billions of dollars worth of produce, mostly soybeans, the first such signing since 2017.
This week's visit, the likes of which had become rare due to bilateral tensions and three years of Chinese COVID-19 border controls, comes ahead of an expected meeting between President Xi Jinping and President Joe Biden in San Francisco this month.
"We've got a big complicated relationship, but agriculture is the ballast in the relationship," Nicholas Burns, U.S. ambassador to China, told the gathering of U.S. and Chinese industry officials.
U.S. Grains Council officials visited China's commerce ministry earlier on Thursday and raised China's anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures against U.S. imports of distillers dried grains (DDGS), a protein-rich byproduct from ethanol production that is fed to animals.
"They suggested we talk with the domestic industry here to have them give their support in the need of the product and they brought up the fact that they'd recently dropped the anti-dumping case on Australian barley, so whether that shows some hope for U.S. DDGs, possibly. I'm not sure," said Cary Sifferath, vice president of the U.S. Grains Council.
Oilseeds and grains are the top U.S. export to China, accounting for $25.4 billion last year, far ahead of other goods such as semiconductors, but Brazil has been eating into the U.S. share of the Chinese market after harvesting bumper crops of soybeans and corn.
China has been pushing to diversify its import sources in the years since former U.S. President Donald Trump launched a bruising trade war and amid rising geopolitical risks, opening its market to Brazilian corn late last year.
Imports of Brazilian soybeans are up 18% in the first nine months of 2023 compared with the same period last year, compared with an 8% increase in U.S. arrivals. Almost 4 million tons of Brazilian corn has reached China, with more on the way.
The delegation, the industry's largest to China since 2016, will travel to Shanghai for next week's annual China International Import Expo, where the USDA is hosting a pavilion for the first time since the event started in 2018.
(This story has been refiled to fix the spelling of 'semiconductors' in paragraph 7)