Agricultural News
President Trump Announces $40-50 Billion Ag Deal With China- "Pretty Much, Subject to Getting It Written"
Mon, 14 Oct 2019 04:41:41 CDT
President Donald Trump offered high hopes for the US agricultural sector on Friday during a briefing on the latest negotiations with the Chinese- claiming billions and billions of dollars worth of purchases are on the way from the Chinese, based on the phase one trade deal that he unveiled.
The President said of the deal itself "We have come to a deal, pretty much, subject to getting it written. It'll take probably three weeks, four weeks, or five weeks." The areas impacted include intellectual property, finances and agriculture.
Regarding Agriculture- here is the what the President said of the deal- including the point where he called uoin Trade Ambassador Robert Lighthizer for clarification of some of the points:
"A tremendous deal for the farmers. A purchase of from 40 to 50 billion dollars' worth of agricultural products. To show you how big that is, that would be two and a half, three times what China had purchased at its highest point thus far. So, they were purchasing $16 or $17 billion at the highest point, and that'll be brought up to $40 billion to $50 billion. So I'd suggest the farmers have to go and immediately buy more land and get bigger tractors. They'll be available at John Deere and a lot of other great distributors.
"But we're taking the purchase of agricultural products from $40 to $50 billion, meaning in that neighborhood from 40 to 50, approximately, billion. And what they've been doing now, I believe, is about $8 billion, right? Eight right now it's eight.
"The other thing I will say is, over the last two weeks, a lot of purchases have started going back to our farmers. And you've been doing a lot of business with us, which we appreciate very much. But it really started a few weeks ago, but they intend to go up, ultimately, once the agreement is signed, from $40 to $50 billion. And, really, from that was from a base of probably $16 billion, and right now it's $8 billion. And the $8 billion was lower than $8 billion. They got up to $8 billion because they've been purchasing quite a bit over the last couple of weeks.
Editor's Note- the real top end for ALL agricultural exports from the US to China is closer to $21.4 billion in 2016- click or tap here for the graphic from USDA.
"So, we also have the agricultural structural issues. We have some incredible progress on the structure and structural issues. And, Bob, perhaps you could discuss that, please, on agriculture, and explain the importance of the structural issues that we've solved.
"AMBASSADOR LIGHTHIZER: Well, I would say probably at least as important as the purchases is the fact that we've corrected a variety of SPS what we call sanitary and phytosanitary issues. And we've corrected biotechnology issues. And it will be it will be much easier now for American farmers to be able to ship to China. And we've made some corrections on our side to that will help them on the Chinese side.
"PRESIDENT TRUMP: And that's been completed and pretty much done.
:AMBASSADOR LIGHTHIZER: That's correct."
Read the complete transcript from the briefing by clicking or tapping here.
To see the briefing from the White House- hit the play button in the VIDEO BOX below- it is set to where it starts with the Ag Comments.
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