Beijing’s trump card in the trade war between China and the United States has been to slap retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural products, but the Chinese regime’s desire to then increasingly rely on domestic farming may have backfired. Agricultural production in China dipped in the first half of 2018, which had the effect of making goods more expensive for its citizens.
On July 6, soybeans, corn, wheat, cotton, rice, and nuts from the U.S. were hit with a 25 percent duties, in response to the Trump administration’s first batch of tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods.
