It almost sounded as if Xi Jinping would be kowtowing in the trade war before Donald Trump. "Mr. President, I attach great importance to your concerns about agricultural products," says a letter sent by China's state and party leaders to Washington prior to the recent negotiations. "Recently, the Chinese companies involved have accelerated their purchases of American agricultural products, including soybeans and pork."
Up to $ 50 billion a year, the Chinese would take in the future in the hand, cheered Trump, after both sides had agreed on Friday on a break in the trade war.
Already at the beginning of the round table, the US Department of Agriculture had announced that China had imported a net 142,172 tons of pork from the US, and this in the previous week alone. That was a record. Trump needs such success stories urgently to relieve the battered US farmers before the 2020 election.
The deal is just made with China, by far, the greatest and biggest deal ever made for our Great Patriot Farmers in the history of our country. In fact, there is a question as to whether or not this product can be produced. Our farmers want figure it out. Thank you China!
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 12, 2019Does China bow to Trump's will? At least, as far as pork imports are concerned, that would be a misinterpretation. Rather, the Chinese are cleverly selling it as a concession that they pursue their own interests.
Pork is an integral part of Chinese cuisine and is considered a staple food there. Almost every second pig that is bred for consumption worldwide is in a stable in China. That was at least until August 2018. The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture confirmed that African swine fever had broken out in the north-eastern province of Liaoning.
It is a highly contagious viral disease that is currently rampant in many countries and infests domestic and wild boars alike. Almost all sick animals die of it, there is no effective vaccine.
More than one million pigs have been slaughtered
In Germany, only isolated cases have occurred - which has alarmed the previously unaffected neighboring Denmark with its numerous breeding farms so that it erects a one and a half meter high fence on the German border to keep migratory wild boar.
In China, the situation is far more serious. Since August 2018, China's epidemic 32 has reached 34 provinces, regions and cities directly linked to the city. The authorities leave little stone unturned: Because the virus spreads among other things through contact and contaminated feed, pigs can now no longer be transported across provincial borders or fed with kitchen waste.
Slaughterhouses where infected animals are discovered must close down. By early October 2019, nearly 1.2 million pigs had been slaughtered. Nevertheless, China does not get the situation under control.
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In addition, with many Chinese breeders slaughtering their healthy animals quickly before the disease reaches their farms, China's pig population is already decimated by two-fifths to half, according to media reports.
The economic and social costs are considerable. Many breeders are left with nothing. About one third of Chinese pork is produced by smallholders; According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 130 million Chinese households hold pigs.
Pigs in polar bear size
And, of course, consumers are also suffering: in normal times, pork - as a comparatively cheap food - is also affordable for less affluent Chinese. But in September 2019, according to official Chinese data, it cost about 50 percent more than in the same month last year.
China makes every effort to alleviate scarcity. The government is launching its strategic reserves of frozen pork. However, together with the rash slaughtering of healthy populations, this is likely to result in a further reduction in the total domestic supply in the near future.
Although farmers in southern China have apparently managed to breed pigs the size of adult polar bears, there is hardly a way around increased imports. This will now benefit the third largest producer in the world, the USA. But undoubtedly the second largest, the EU.
With that in mind, Trump's deal looks a bit less impressive.
