BEIJING – China’s retaliatory tariffs against US farm produce, from corn to chicken, are designed to hurt President Donald Trump’s voter base, but remain restrained enough to allow room for the two countries to hash out a trade deal, analysts say.
Since taking office in January, Mr Trump has unleashed a storm of tariffs against friends and foes alike, this week hiking blanket duties on Chinese products, adding to a plethora of existing levies.
Beijing swiftly responded with countermeasures targeting imports of American farm products, many of which are produced in the rural heartland that voted resoundingly for Mr Trump in the November election.
The Chinese tariffs “are being calibrated to hit Trump where it hurts: in the agricultural red states that voted him in”, said Ms Even Pay, an agriculture analyst at Trivium China, a policy research firm.
“These responses are also being rolled out rapidly… (indicating) officials in Beijing already have a game plan and likely have an extensive menu of potential targets,” she added.
China imported US$29 billion (S$39 billion) of US farm produce in 2023, more than any other country, according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).
From March 10, Beijing will impose, on top of existing tariffs, an additional 10 to 15 per cent on several US farm products.
US chicken, wheat, corn and cotton will be levied the higher charge. Soybeans, sorghum, pork, beef, aquatic products, fruit, vegetables and dairy items will be subject to the slightly lower rate.
Red state pain
The countermeasures appear likely to cause more economic pain in Republican areas than Democrat ones, research indicates.
A previous round of retaliatory tariffs that Beijing levied in February on imports of American energy, automotive and machinery products could affect up to 700,000 jobs, according to the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan US think tank.
Nearly two-thirds of them are in counties that voted for Mr Trump at the last election, the analysis published in February concluded.
A breakdown also found that many of the jobs most likely to bear the brunt of the new levies seem to cluster in Republican strongholds.
In the state of Illinois, won by Democratic challenger Kamala Harris in November, five of the country’s biggest soybean-producing counties still swung decisively for Mr Trump.
Widely used in animal feed, soybeans were the biggest US farm export to China in 2023, according to USDA data.
The main soybean industry group this week repeated longstanding opposition to tariffs and warned of catastrophic consequences for farmers.
And while Mr Trump paid farmers subsidies to offset the pain of his first trade war, “this time around… the expense will be too large”, said Mr Phillip Braun, clinical professor of finance at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Path to a deal?
Professor Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies at Shanghai’s Fudan University, said the measures would not turn up the political heat on Mr Trump by squeezing US exports and worsening inflation.
In the longer term, he added, “it will have an unfavourable impact on the Republicans in next year’s midterm elections”.
But some research suggests that the impact of tariffs on red states may not be enough to turn Republican voters off Mr Trump.
His first trade war with China in 2018 and 2019 also brought economic hardship to America’s southern and midwestern heartland, according to a study published in January by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a non-partisan US think tank.
But voters there still ended up more likely to vote for Mr Trump in the 2020 election, when he lost to Democrat Joe Biden, the report found.
Despite a mixed record, Mr Trump’s “commitment to tariffs and reinvigorating manufacturing… is strongly supported by his base”, said Mr Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University.
“The more combative China gets, the more his base will support him,” he added.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi on March 7 vowed to “firmly counter” trade pressure from Washington. But experts said Beijing has so far exercised restraint compared to Mr Trump’s all-encompassing levies.
The limited response was “due to the gap in means, strength and flexibility” relative to the US, said Professor Shi Yinhong, who teaches international relations at Peking University and has advised the Chinese government.
But Ms Susan Shirk, director emeritus of the 21st Century China Centre at the University of California, San Diego, said it also showed Beijing hopes to talk through its trade problems with Washington.
Beijing has “done nothing to preclude the possibility of negotiating a deal, which is the path they much prefer”, she added. AFP
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