U.S. grain and oilseed producers cheered when the United States signed the Phase 1 trade deal with China a year ago.
But while the deal delights U.S. farmers and exporters, its short-sighted nature could end up being harmful to domestic users of grain and other commodities, and those effects could ultimately hurt consumers, says a column at Reuters by Karen Braun.
For example, one of the most puzzling aspects of Phase 1 is that the trade targets are in dollar values instead of tonnage. That means commodity prices largely drive China’s progress, and at the time of the negotiation, those prices were substantially lower than in the record trade years.
Read the full column here.