The tariff waivers were based on applications by individual companies, the Finance Ministry said in a statement, citing a decision by the country’s cabinet without specifying the quantities involved.

Several industry sources in the United States and China interpreted the announcement as official confirmation of duty exemptions on up to 10 million tonnes of soybeans and an unknown volume of pork, sources said were offered to importers earlier this year.

“There’s nothing that’s saying this is some big addition to what’s been out there,” said Matt Wiegand, commodity broker for FuturesOne in Lincoln, Nebraska.

China had imposed levies in response to tariffs launched by Washington over allegations that China steals and forces the transfer of American intellectual property to Chinese firms. Tariffs on U.S. soy imports are currently 33 per cent while levies on pork are up to 72 per cent.

Importers with duty-free quotas have been required to pay the tariffs and later apply for refunds, a process that traders said caused delays in unloading shipments. Friday’s announcement appeared to remove that step, industry sources said.

The announcement did not trigger new U.S. soy purchases Dec. 6, the day of the announcement, three U.S. soybean exporters said, although soybean and hog futures firmed on the news.

The waivers came amid negotiations to conclude a Phase 1 deal to de-escalate a 17-month trade war that has roiled financial markets, disrupted supply chains and weighed on global economic growth.

Though President Donald Trump struck an upbeat tone on progress in talks Dec. 5, a new round of U.S. tariffs covering about $156 billion of Chinese imports is set to kick in just over a week on Dec. 15.

“The goal (of this move) is to expand purchases and reassure the United States,” said a Chinese source who advises Beijing on the trade talks but declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Beijing’s levies on U.S. soybeans initially brought its purchases of the United States’ most valuable farm export to a virtual halt, although it has offered waivers to buyers in recent months as the U.S. crop was harvested.

The Chinese government never made the details of these waivers public, however.

It is not clear how much U.S. soy China will buy in coming months as the Brazilian harvest looms, said Darin Friedrichs, senior Asia commodity analyst at INTL FC Stone.

Exemptions for pork are likely to be in higher demand, with less than two months until China’s Lunar New Year holiday, the country’s peak consumption period.

China has been scouring the world for more meat to fill a big shortage of protein after an outbreak of African swine fever devastated its massive hog herd, cutting supplies of pork.

The post China to waive tariffs on some U.S. soybeans, pork appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

The trade dispute will have a limited impact on China’s agriculture sector, but hit its U.S. counterparts harder, Han Jun was quoted by state radio as saying.

“Relevant departments are fully prepared after meticulous studies and China is fully capable of ensuring domestic demand for cooking oil and protein-based animal feed be covered.”

One solution is to boost imports from other exporters such as Brazil, and soymeal could easily be substituted by animal feeds made from other seeds, Han added.

China, the world’s top agricultural products importer, has an annual shortfall of 90 million tonnes of soybeans and the U.S. supplies a third of China’s total imports.

Soybeans are processed to make cooking oil and animal feed.

Beijing started levying an additional 25 percent tariff on U.S. beans on July 6 in retaliation for a similar move by Washington in the tit-for-tat trade war.

The post China expects its U.S. agricultural imports to fall sharply appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.

Fruits were among 128 U.S. goods that China slapped with more expensive import tariffs in retaliation for U.S. levies on Chinese steel and aluminum as trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies flared this year.

A U.S. trade delegation led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is in Beijing for talks with Chinese officials. The two sides are expected to discuss an array of U.S. complaints about China’s trade practices, from accusations of forced technology transfers to state subsidies for technology development.

Since last week, Beijing has dispatched quarantine experts to major ports including Shanghai and Shenzhen to make more thorough on-site checks for disease and rot, a source based in Shanghai with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters, declining to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

“China has resumed the practice of inspecting every batch of U.S. fresh fruit,” the source said, adding that inspectors had previously checked only around 30 percent of shipments. China had dialed back the checks in November 2017.

Since Monday, all U.S.-originated fruit shipments have been subject to up to seven days of quarantine check on arrival in Shenzhen, said an industry source based at the port in China’s south.

Previously, customs officers in China had let shipments through while they conducted sample checks.

Several containers of oranges imported by the source’s company from the U.S. have been intercepted this week, the Shenzhen industry source added.

China’s customs office could not be immediately reached for comment outside business hours.

Several batches of U.S. apples have failed quarantine inspections and will be returned to the U.S., the Shanghai source with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Washington-based Chelan Fresh sales manager Bryan Peebles said he had heard of some shipment holdups, but that his export business, which includes apples and cherries, was not affected in recent weeks.

“There has been news of detaining of fruits — citrus and a little bit of apples,” he said, adding that exporters will get a better handle on any heightened scrutiny when the year’s first California cherry exports arrive in China this week.

The U.S. sold $18 million of fresh apples to China in 2017 out of $872 million in total exports, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (all figures US$).

The more thorough inspections came as the cherry season on the U.S. West Coast kicked off. Shipments from Washington state typically begin in June.

“We’re crossing our fingers and toes that everything will get worked out in the next month. China’s a big market for us,” said Randy Eckert, export sales manager for Washington-based Yakima Fresh LLC.

If the measures remain in place, he fears a “domino effect” of canceled orders by China and a rush by U.S. cherry growers to resell the perishable produce domestically or to other importers such as Canada.

Likely days-long delays during the height of cherry shipping season this summer will raise the risk of spoilage at ports of entry, said Keith Hu, director of international operations for the industry group Northwest Cherry Growers.

“During the peak of our season, there is no way that they will have enough refrigerated storage for our cherries. The chances that our cherries will be destroyed under the sun is far greater,” he said. “We’re looking at alternative markets.”

China is the third-largest export market for fresh cherries from the U.S. U.S. exporters shipped $119 million of fresh cherries to China, just under a third of total shipments worth $605 million in 2017.

Fruits have previously been a casualty of bilateral trade spats. Several years ago, China banned some imports of Philippine fruits as bilateral ties deteriorated over a maritime territorial dispute in the South China Sea.

One Chinese online retailer that imports and sells U.S. cherries has suspended plans to promote U.S. fruits, a source at the company said.

— Reporting by Yawen Chen in Beijing and Karl Plume in Chicago; additional reporting by Ann Saphir in San Francisco.

The post China customs expanding checks on U.S. fruit imports appeared first on Manitoba Co-operator.