Dim Sums: Agricultural Markets in China

This week a Chinese State TV program exposed live-streamers who promoted bottles of "walnut oil" that were actually filled with soybean oil. China's latest food safety scandal highlights how pervasive fraud undermines the strategy of using high-quality to differentiate food products and earn premium prices. The case also incidentally highlights how the low price of soybeans perpetuates their oversize role in China's food industry.  Chinese State TV broadcast investigates adulteration of walnut oil. The "Yikoufu" brand of walnut oil was advertised by live-streamers on China's WeChat platform, purportedly sold by "People's Supply and Marketing Cooperative – Guangping Supply and Marketing Cooperative Selection." Walnut oil is said to be a favorite of Chinese consumers due to its health benefits as rich in unsaturated fatty acids. Live streamers promoting the Yikoufu walnut oil hyped the product in a "public-service agricultural support e...

Prospects for U.S. agricultural exports to China are still murky after Chinese negotiators dropped a 1619-item list of items that will be "considered" for tariff reductions after last week's Trump-Xi summit. The list was released by the White House as part of a plan for establishing a U.S.-China Board of Trade composed of Chinese and U.S. officials that aims to "optimize" trade between the two countries. Each country released a "30-for-30" list of products that the U.S. and China will consider for reductions of country-specific tariffs. Each list apparently is composed of commodities that had $30 billion in trade in 2024, the year before the current trade war began.  A Chinese official explained that the "30 billion-for-30 billion" framework was agreed by Chinese Ministry of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative officials at their May meeting. He said tariffs will be lowered to the Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) rate about 90% of the items, and...