Todd Bishop
Japan’s Kyodo News quoted a US and Japanese government report on August 13 that US President Donald Trump had directly asked Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to purchase huge amounts of US agricultural products to fill the decline in agricultural exports due to China-US trade wars. .
According to the report, Trump has proposed that the Japanese side purchase specific varieties such as US soybeans and wheat. According to the report, this purchase requirement is different from the US-Japan trade negotiation framework, which aims to reduce the trade deficit with Japan, and is an additional requirement.
The report said that the Japanese government is fully discussing the response measures and is wary of the negative impact on trade negotiations. Although no specific countermeasures have been identified, hundreds of millions of dollars in purchases have been generated within the government using the food aid framework for Africa, including transportation costs. However, the US side may use this as a bargaining chip for trade talks, and the Japanese side will be gradually asked to purchase various American products.
After the China-US trade war broke out, US agricultural exports fell. According to the US Department of Agriculture data, from July 2018 to June 2019, US soybean exports decreased by 70% compared with the same period of the previous year, only 3.1 billion US dollars; wheat decreased by 90%. The US government has introduced a total of 28 billion U.S. dollars in agricultural aid measures since 2018.
