Trump: China to buy $50 billion US farm goods annually

1. Imagine you were a pig farmer selling a lot of pigs to a restaurant. One day the restaurant owner died of heart attack, and his business was taken over by his son.

The new owner began to complain that you were "stealing" his business and money because you sold more than you bought from him. In order to reduce his "trade deficit", he forced you to purchase a large amount of food that could feed at least 10 people at every meal. Literally you were force-fed like a Beijing duck.

2. As part of a so-called phase-one deal, Trump claimed that China would purchase a steep $50 billion worth of agricultural products from the US annually. Well, every farm product has an expiry date of its own especially when we consider the long time lag between harvesting and putting the food into the stomach after a long voyage across the Pacific.

One way for China to deal with the problem of unsold, rotten farm products is to dump them into the sea for the construction of artificial islands. Perhaps that is the best way to stop the US from complaining about Chinese activities in the South China Sea.

How can the US complain anymore? The artificial islands would be built at an astronomical cost for reducing US trade deficit.

 

I'm glad something's happening for the better.

 

China needs to buy more than 50 billion a year.

 

What I see here is another Democrat trying to play down another Trump victory. Of course that is nothing out of the ordinary for the Democrats and bias news. Usually thy won't tell the public anything good Trump does. It just so happens that normally we sell China
"Having a million, million-and-a-half tonnes is great, it's wonderful, it's a great step," said Steve Censky deputy secretary of the US Department of Agriculture."But there needs to be a lot more as well, especially if you consider it in a normal, typical year, we'll be selling 30 to 35 million metric tonnes to China."I don't remember that China complained that the food was spoiled when they got it. As a matter of fact right before this last trade stoppage we sold China rice for the first time ever. They bought American beef for the first time in 14 years.

 

Why should it buy from the USA at all when it is buying large swathes of Africa

 

What “victory” you have had to bail out the farmers

 

Ask China.

Im not all that concerned militarily about China.

 

China does buy a massive amount of Pork - and this helps our farmers - but, raising pigs is not going to bring manufacturing back to the US/Solve our outsourcing problem.

 

No pigs are not.

But there are other ways.

 

Would you had us rather not, had the farmers go under and food prices go through the roof? You do know for decades we paid farmers not to grow crops to keep the price up assuring the farmer could make a decent profit. If we just let them go, so much food could be produced that the price would sink so low, that it would cost more to grow it than they would get to sell it. The money given to the farmers, was from the money collected from the tariffs. When we subsidized the farmers not to grow crops, that came from our treasury

 

What other ways ? Kind of the point here really - what is happening on the manufacturing front ?

Was reading the other day about how the EV battery market is is going to surpass the Chip market very soon. The article talked about the various companies competing for this market at present. None were US companies. Can't blame Trump for missing that boat but - it was a missed boat IMO.

This deal is going to get done - we will get a few things and so will China - but not much will change from how things were prior. China will do a better job on intellectual property - but - since China has already stolen everything - and are now one of the main innovators - China wants intellectual property protection.

Business as usual will continue - China will continue to be a tough competitor and our descent from World Empire status will continue.

This is the natural way of things - cant be at the top forever. It is not like we will not be a big player - but we will be one of many.

Eventually we will see a competitor to the US system of international payments - this will make it harder to sell our debt and interest rates on our debt will rise - and we will be in trouble.

 

We are bringing manufacturing jobs back-I wish more.

But this is a trade deal-not just a manufacturing deal.

The USMCA, etc are better example of manufacturing jobs.

Lets also think tech and agricultural jobs.

Just watch...

 

I always suspect Trump's "great news" and numbers content. It appears it's not quite as Trump proclaimed. Check the CNBC story here. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/16/us-...-agreement-but-key-details-still-unclear.html

 

There's 1.4 billion people living in China. Pretty sure that they could use the food or they wouldn't have agreed to the deal.

 

How so? Your article notes that China would buy $16 billion MORE in agricultural products which would bring it up to $50 billion.

Essentially they are already buying around $34 billion worth of agricultural goods. Trump just got them to agree to an additional $16 billion.

 

It’s just too bad that China can easily abuse its people and there’s nothing they can do about it. If they starve they starve. It’s not like China would feel bad if their population got smaller. Human rights. International laws. Corporate law. They don’t give a crap about any of it. Whatever danger certain countries think we might threaten, it’s truly NOTHING compared to what a China hs been doing the past few decades.

 

I am yet to be convinced with respect to manufacturing Jobs. The Manufacturing index has been negative for 4 months in a row now. This however, may be due to the trade war with China. Once the deal with China is done I am hoping there will be an uptick.

 

Dems sat on the USMCA for over a year. Thats where the largest percentage of manufacturing will come from.

By spring time I expect the numbers to be even better.

 

Smithfield foods is own by the Chinese. They buy a lot of pork from themselves. And as a kicker sell alot of pork in in the United States.

 

Lets hope. I have been extremely critical of the way the admin handled the Iran Sanctions. While Trump was going around trying to bash all the nations of the world that matter into submission using the "nuclear option - threatening to block banks and corps out of the US international systems of payments" - and messing with the sovereignty of these nations - Russia and China have been racing around the globe doing deals.

Some of this we won't get back -and there is more losses to come. This is the main reason I don't want the Trump admin in for a second term.

Our position on the geopolitical chessboard has changed - and we are still living in the delusion of past glory - when we could get away with this stuff. Well - we didn't have to do this stuff - back in the day, all we needed to do was whisper our desires into the ear of some nation and they would come running to please.

Back then we were the only game in town. No more. We are being punished - by the world as a quazi collective - for the first time in modern history.

I don't blame this all on Trump - or only this admin - but - Trump is at the helm and he is the one who has been firing shots at these nations.

 

Im fine with Trumps sanctions on Iran-their economy is in ruins and we don't need to go to war-because we are the top energy producer in the world.

 

Its not about the Sanctions on Iran that are the problem and certainly not what it is doing to their economy - that is not the issue that is of concern.

It is how the Admin tried to force the world to go along with those sanctions. That is what has harmed, and continues to harm us - not the Sanctions themselves.

 

By using pork as an example, you can ignore the theft of intellectual property. How about a business owner giving up on sleep and time with family to develop software only to have his intellectual property stolen and his lifes work knocked off?

 

Our sanctions don't mean a thing if we can't get other nations to go along with them. Iran just trades with someone else. Manufacturing might have slowed down because these other nation that might consider moving here are hesitant tell after the election. The Democrats are threatening to jack up taxes on business and Trump's tax and regulation cuts is what brought manufacturing back .It cost a lot of money to move factories here. Companies are going to be weary of spending the money if after they make the move, the Democrats take away the advantages of moving here.

 

My great friend, please provide us with one solid proof of the alleged Chinese thefts of US intellectual property. It's funny that the internet is full of evidences about Trump’s scandals but few Americans seem to believe in them. However, people like you seem ready to swallow all the so-called Chinese intellectual thefts as alleged by people like Trump and Navarro.

Anyway, this thread is not about alleged Chinese intellectual thefts, but about the unsubstantiated claims by Trump and his trade advisers that China is committed to purchase $50 billion worth of agricultural products annually in their so-called "totally done" deal.

I also use a simple but effective analogy of a transaction between a pig farmer and a restaurant owner to take a dig at the US illogical concept of "trade deficit".