U.S. Will Battle to Regain China Market Share, Minister Han Says

(Bloomberg) -- If U.S. producers lose share in China’s vast agricultural-products market it will be difficult to regain, China’s Agriculture and Rural Affairs Minister Han Jun told official Xinhua News Agency.

China is unlikely to resume “normal” bilateral trade of commodities, including soybeans, if the U.S. does not cancel punitive tariffs, he said in a Xinhua report on Saturday. People in the agriculture industry are aware that it will be difficult to regain market share in China once they lose it, Han said.

China has a number of options should the tariffs remain, he said, according to the report. The country could boost its own soybean output or increase imports from South America and Russia to ensure sufficient supplies, Xinhua cited Han as saying.

In response to President Donald Trump’s imposition of 25% tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, China raised levies on tens of billions of dollars of products imported from the U.S.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Yan Zhang in Beijing at yzhang1044@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Shamim Adam at sadam2@bloomberg.net, Stanley James, John McCluskey

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With assistance from Bloomberg