By Ella Cao, Daphne Zhang and Lewis Jackson
BEIJING, May 20 (Reuters) – China and the United States have agreed to cut agricultural trade tariffs as part of a broader trade deal, but several questions about implementation have yet to be answered, China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Wednesday.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Beijing last week, and the White House said China agreed to buy $17 billion worth of U.S. agricultural products annually, building on existing billions of dollars in soybean commitments.
The pledge would bring China’s imports of U.S. agricultural products back to record levels, but to achieve it, Beijing may need to abandon tariffs it imposed during the trade war.
Both parties “agreed in principle to include relevant content in [agricultural] The Commerce Department said in a statement that it largely echoed Saturday’s announcement.
The statement did not say what products might be included, nor did it mention the $17 billion commitment.
China’s interpretations tend to be more cautious than those in Washington. Beijing purchased 12 million tonnes of soybeans late last year as part of an agreement reached at an October summit but has never publicly acknowledged the commitment.
The statement also mentioned the Trade Commission, which will be responsible for selecting and overseeing $30 billion worth of goods for which tariffs will be reduced to historic levels or lower.
Even Rogers Pay, director of Trivium China, said: “We believe China will focus its reduction efforts on U.S. agricultural products.”
“Together, the $17 billion worth of purchase agreements and 25 million metric tons of soybean transactions bring the total value to approximately just over $30 billion.”
As Reuters reported last week, the statement also said China had recertified the registration of U.S. beef companies and would resume poultry exports from some U.S. states experiencing bird flu outbreaks.
China also said it would discuss agricultural biotechnology issues of concern to Washington, but did not elaborate.
(Reporting by Ella Cao, Daphne Zhang and Lewis Jackson in Beijing; Editing by Thomas Derpinghaus)