International Journal of Advance Agricultural Research
ISSN: 2053-1265
Vol. 9(1), pp. 1-21, March 2021
doi.org/10.33500/ijaar.2021.09.001

Sino-US agricultural trade in the past 40 years: Retrospect and prospects on the signing of the first phase Sino-US economic and trade agreement

Enfu Cheng¹* and Yuhui Luo²

¹Academy of Marxism, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100732, China.
²China Capital Market Institute, Shenzhen 518000, China.

*To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: luoyuhui@126.com.

Received 13 January, 2021; Received in revised form 17 February, 2021; Accepted 22 February, 2021.

Abstract

Keywords:
Sino-US trade of agricultural products, Sino-US trade friction, Chinese agriculture.

In this paper, the evolution of Sino-US agricultural trade during China’s 40 years of reform and opening-up is described on a stage-by-stage basis, with an itemized breakdown of the imports by the two countries. The United States mainly imports various fruits and vegetables from China, while China imports principally corn, soybeans, cotton and pork from the United States. The paper analyzes several important changes in the import and export of agricultural products in the context of current trade frictions, in order to make a short-term forecast of agricultural trade between China and the United States following the signing of the first phase agreement on economic relations and trade between the two countries. More specifically, it discusses agriculture in the context of the economic and trade relations between the two countries in the next five years, as well as the impact on China’s agriculture and market demand. We believe that the signing of the first phase agreement between China and the United States on economic relations and trade will have both positive and negative impacts on the development of China’s agriculture. While China is required to increase the amount and range of its imports of agricultural produce from the United States, it must properly address two issues: imports of genetically modified agricultural products and the cancellation of its most favored nation status.