Kinas försvar mot Trumps tullkrig: en mur av griskött

Beijing’s tariffs on U.S. farm goods will have little short-term impact on Chinese consumers — making it ideal for inflicting political pain on Trump, analysts say.

Chinese people love pork. They ate about 57 million metric tons of pork last year - just over half of the global total - and the pork section at Xinfadi, Beijing’s largest wholesale market, is so huge it occupies its own building.

The air in the hall here is thick with the sickly sweet smell of flesh and the thunk of heavy metal choppers cleaving ribs and trimming fat.

Pork is so rooted in Chinese culture, cuisine and language that the Chinese character for home or family is a pig under a roof, and the word for meat - rou - is generally understood to mean pork. Guaranteeing supply of the meat is so politically important that the Chinese Communist Party even manages a “strategic pork reserve” to see the country through lean times.

So it might, at first glance, appear surprising that Beijing slapped a 10 percent tariff on American pork during its last round of actions to retaliate against President Donald Trump’s duties on everything China exports to the United States, moves that economists say could raise the costs of everyday goods in the United States.

Because China does not buy anywhere near as much as it sells to the United States, Beijing has had to create ways to pressure Trump without incurring major costs at home.

Targeting American farm products is a key part of Beijing’s response. It put 10-15 percent tariffs on $21 billion of American imports, including pork, chicken, soybeans and other farming goods predominantly produced in rural areas of the United States that voted Republican in the last election, including Iowa, North Carolina and Missouri. China was the third largest importer of American pork last year after Japan and Mexico.

But despite the fondness for pork, the tariffs on American pork will inflict relatively little pain on China. That’s because Beijing has made headway in curbing reliance on American pork and creating an imbalance that works in its favor.

The $1.1 billion worth of pork that China bought from the United States last year amounted to a mere 7 percent of its imports and 0.1 percent of total supply.

Butchers at Xinfadi brushed aside the possibility that tariffs will damage business. “We only sell domestically produced pork,” said Zhang Haifu, as she placed freshly cut trotters out for display. “Trade tensions have nothing to do with us.”

In the pork section of Xinfadi, a big electronic board hangs by the entrance flashing the prices of the 1,795 hogs available today - around $1 per pound - next to a column noting the farm location.

Demand here extends to the whole pig. Ears, tripe, trotters and other assorted offal are often considered delicacies in China, creating a sizable market for imports from innards-averse countries like the United States. About 25 percent - or 322,000 metric tons last year - of swine offal imported into China comes from the United States.

“No alternative market can approach this volume at the price Chinese buyers pay,” the U.S. Meat Export Federation said in a recent update.

Chinese authorities are betting that farmers in countries like Brazil and Spain will be more than happy to serve up extra swine to the world’s biggest market.

Beijing has worked hard since the trade war of Trump’s first term to make sure imports of American farm goods are not central to its supply, including by boosting domestic pork production, which makes up 97 percent of the Chinese market.

This effort to be self-sufficient was complicated by an outbreak of swine fever in 2018, which helped U.S. imports hit a record in 2020.

Since then, smaller farms that used to raise most of China’s pigs have, with Beijing’s encouragement, given way to gigantic multistory structures, sometimes called “hog hotels” by Chinese media.

China has also begun to import pork and pig feed from a wider range of countries in recent years. The first shipment of Russian hogs arrived last year and was widely celebrated in state media as a sign of friendly relations, despite Russian pork being only a tiny portion of Chinese imports.

“In the past two years, domestic supply has been relatively stable and cost competitiveness has been improved,” said Zhu Zengyong, a researcher at the state-run Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

Imports from Brazil, Spain and other producers should be sufficient to meet demand even during the trade war, Zhu said. “In the long run, if Trump keeps this policy, I don’t think American pork will be competitive in China,” he said.

Although pork might be relatively insulated at the moment, the wider trade war might eventually push up the price of Chinese pork through the higher costs of feed and general uncertainty in international markets, experts warn.

China has a much greater reliance on American soybeans than on its pork. American soybeans are about 35 percent of the total supply in China and are mostly used for animal feed and cooking oil. Chinese companies have been stockpiling soybeans and signing six- to nine-month contracts to lock in prices, Chinese media reported.

But it will take time for the wider effects of the trade war to be felt, and it’s often difficult for consumers to connect them directly to specific tariffs.

Tariffs impose costs so diffuse that consumers often don’t realize they are to blame for rising prices, said Jack Zhang, an assistant professor at the University of Kansas who has studied the U.S.-China trade war.

“Those costs have to be paid, but they’re insidious,” Zhang said.

Beijing appears to be hoping that its retaliation will create political pressure on Trump. It has already cast itself as determined to protect the rights of Chinese consumers and suppliers, including by admonishing Walmart executives after reports that the American multinational was pressuring its suppliers to cut prices and share the costs of Trump’s tariffs.

While the true costs of tariffs will take time to be felt, the trade war might eventually push up the prices of Chinese pork.

But in China’s anemic economy, a touch of inflation wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, analysts note. Pork prices have been stubbornly low in recent months, except during the Lunar New Year holiday, when families gather for meat-heavy feasts.

Rising prices from tariffs are “good news for China’s domestic pig farming companies,” said Even Pay, an expert on Chinese agricultural policy at Trivium China, a consultancy, noting that applying tariffs to U.S. pork will probably limit supply and push up prices, helping domestic farmers turn a profit.

Many manufacturers and exporters are worried that the trade war with the United States could cast a wider pall that further depresses consumption across the Chinese economy.

Growth is already struggling to meet the government’s annual target of about 5 percent, with households reluctant to spend even before Trump started ratcheting up external pressures. Beijing on Sunday unveiled a “Special Action Plan to Boost Consumption.”

On a recent day, customers were scarce at the “big fridge of Beijing” - a sprawling logistics hub and Costco-like bulk-buy warehouse that opened last year southeast of Beijing.

It has everything a Chinese family could need for a banquet: sacks of spices and chili, cooking oil in huge drums and a whole hangar of alcohol and tea vendors.

Vendors complained that, trade war or not, people aren’t spending like they used to.

“No one really comes here,” said Cui Yawei, the owner of a snack stall in the warehouse piled high with roasted cashews, vegetable crisps and hawthorn flakes.

“When the phone rings, others hope it will be their loved one, I only hope it is a client,” Cui wrote on her shop account on social media app WeChat. “Don’t ask me if I’m there or not. I never rest. I’ll respond faster than your romantic partner.”

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