BEIJING, May 20 - China and the United States have reached an agreement in principle to reduce tariffs on agricultural trade as part of a larger trade arrangement, the Ministry of Commerce said on Wednesday. The ministry's statement reiterated the broad framework but left multiple implementation questions unanswered.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Beijing last week. The White House said China agreed to purchase $17 billion of U.S. agricultural products annually on top of a previously announced multi-billion-dollar soybean commitment. Meeting that level of purchases would likely require Beijing to remove tariffs it imposed during the bilateral trade dispute.
In its announcement, the Ministry of Commerce said both sides "in principle agreed to include relevant [agricultural] products in the reciprocal tariff reduction framework, while also setting guiding goals to expand two-way trade in agricultural products." The language closely mirrors an earlier statement issued on Saturday but does not identify which agricultural items would be encompassed or provide operational details such as timing or sequencing.
The ministry's release also noted plans to establish a board of trade to select and supervise about $30 billion worth of goods where tariffs will be reduced to historic levels or lower. The statement did not explicitly mention the $17 billion purchase figure cited by the White House.
China purchased 12 million tons of soybeans late last year as part of a deal agreed at an October summit, although Beijing has not publicly acknowledged that commitment. Analysts have pointed to the scale of that purchase when assessing how tariff reductions might be prioritized.
"We think the Chinese side will focus those reductions on U.S. agricultural products," said Even Rogers Pay, a director at Trivium China. "The $17 billion purchase agreement and 25 million metric tons soybean deal, together, would roughly total out to just over $30 billion."
The ministry's statement also covered several regulatory and sanitary measures. It said China had re-certified registrations for U.S. beef companies and that it would resume poultry imports from certain U.S. states where earlier avian influenza outbreaks had affected exports. In addition, Beijing indicated it would hold discussions on agricultural biotechnology issues that Washington has raised, but the statement provided no further detail on the scope or timetable for those talks.
What remains unclear
- Which specific agricultural products will be included in reciprocal tariff reductions.
- How and when tariffs imposed during the trade dispute would be rolled back to permit the projected uplifts in two-way agricultural trade.
- Operational details for the trade board tasked with overseeing roughly $30 billion of goods, including selection criteria and oversight mechanisms.
The announcement underscores that, while leaders have set broad objectives for expanding agricultural commerce, substantial implementation work remains. For market participants — from commodity traders to U.S. agricultural exporters and processors — the absence of detail on product coverage and timing leaves open questions about how fast trade flows and related prices might adjust.