Source: MEATINGPLACE, 7/6/18


Retaliatory trade tariffs by China and Mexico now apply to 40 percent of total American pork exports, threatening the livelihoods of thousands of U.S. pig farmers, the National Pork Producers Council said Friday in response to the escalating trade war between the United States and China.

The Trump administration’s 25 percent tariff on $34 billion worth of Chinese products officially went into effect overnight, prompting China to quickly retaliate with previously threatened penalties on an equal amount of U.S. exports, including pork, beef, soybeans and automobiles.

“We now face large financial losses and contraction because of escalating trade disputes. That means less income for pork producers and, ultimately, some of them going out of business,” said NPPC President Jim Heimerl, a hog farmer from Johnstown, Ohio, in a statement.

U.S. pork producers now face punitive tariffs of 62 percent on exports to China, a market that represented 17 percent of total U.S. exports by value in 2017.

China announced a new 25 percent tariff in response to U.S. action under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. That tariff is on top of the 25 percent punitive duty levied by China in early April in response to U.S. action under Section 232 of The Trade Expansion Act of 1962, NPPC said. U.S. pork already had a 12 percent tariff on exports to China. (The country also has a 13 percent value-added tax on most agricultural imports.)

Combined with Mexico, which also placed a punitive tariff on U.S. pork – it was 10 percent from June 5 until yesterday, when it rose to 20 percent – 40 percent of total American pork exports now are under retaliatory tariffs, threatening the livelihoods of thousands of U.S. pig farmers.

Iowa State University economists calculated that from early March, when rumors of China’s initial retaliatory tariff were circulating, through May producers lost $18 per hog, or more than $2 billion on an annualized basis, NPPC said.

“America’s pig farmers and their families are patriots who are demonstrating enormous commitment to the greater good of our country as they shoulder a disproportionate share of trade retaliation against the United States,” said Heimerl. “We need these trade disputes to end.”

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