China Ag Imports Up...except for U.S. products

China's imports of most agricultural and food commodities have grown in the first 8 months of 2018, but imports from the United States fell sharply as retaliatory tariffs took effect July 6.

Since April, China's reporting of foreign trade data has been limited to a handful of monthly bulletins posted on the customs administration's web site. Piecing these together, it's possible to get a crude picture of how Chinese agricultural imports are faring during the "trade war" with the United States.

Approximating agricultural imports by adding up HS chapters 01-24 and 52 shows that China's imports of farm products from other countries was up about 16.5 percent year-on-year for January-August 2018, while imports from the U.S. were down 1.9 percent. The United States accounted for 18 percent of ag imports by this definition.

Soybeans are by far China's largest agricultural import, valued at $26.8 billion in January-August 2018. China imported 62 million metric tons of soybeans during January-August, about 1 mmt less than the same months in 2017. There was no drop-off as the 25-percent tariff on U.S. soybeans kicked in July 6. On the contrary, imports were up to 9.15 mmt in August. The customs data don't reveal which countries the August soybean imports came from, but Brazil was surely the predominant source.

China's grain imports surged during April and May, probably reflecting front-loading of shipments to get ahead of the U.S. tariffs. Grain imports were clearly down in July and August

Imports of U.S. grain fell to near-negligible amounts in July and August. Imports of fruit, nuts, dairy, meat and seafood from the U.S. also fell sharply.

 China's imports of U.S. alcohol have fallen, but imports of processed food, food preparations, meat and bone meal, fish meal and pet food have been more robust.

Imports of grains were down (except for corn), pork was down slightly, but China's imports of most major commodities were up sharply in the first eight months of 2018.

China imports of selected agricultural items, January-August 2017-2018
		January-August total
Item	Unit	2017	2018	Percent change
Soybeans	MMT	63.3	62.0	-2.1
Cereal grains	MMT	17.96	16.41	-8.6
Corn	MMT	2.03	2.87	41.4
Sorghum	MMT	3.84	2.02	-47.4
Barley	MMT	6.02	5.55	-7.8
Wheat	MMT	3.18	2.23	-29.9
Rice	MMT	2.68	2.02	-24.6
Cotton	1,000 MT	810	980	21.0
Edible oils	MMT	3.56	3.88	9.0
Palm oil	MMT	1.88	2.16	14.9
Rapeseed oil	MMT	0.58	0.83	43.1
Soybean oil	MMT	0.51	0.29	-43.1
Seafood	1,000 MT	1,950	2,120	8.7
Meat and offal	1,000 MT	2,710	2,834	4.6
Pork	1,000 MT	834	829	-0.6
Beef	1,000 MT	456	638	40.1
Poultry	1,000 MT	290	326	12.4
Mutton	1,000 MT	176	227	29.0
Dairy products	1,000 MT	1,718	1,880	9.4
Fruit and nuts	1,000 MT	3,110	3,840	23.5
Alcohol,beverages	Mil. Liters	1,003	1,767	76.2