Grant Kimberley, a sixth-generation soybean farmer and marketing director of the Iowa Soybean Association, operates a seeding machine at his family farm in Maxwell, Iowa, the United States, April 26, 2019. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

US farm produce exporters should avoid double standards in their trade with China, Chinese trade experts said on Sunday, calling for adequate efforts to guarantee COVID-19-free shipments.

The purported forgoing of China trade by some shippers due to official virus-free declarations requested by Chinese authorities wouldn't put a damper on the implementation of the phase one trade deal, they noted. 

US food and feed exporters have their items shipped to China with commitment statements assuring cargo safety in lieu of official declarations, a Reuters report said on Friday, citing the statements drafted by the Agriculture Transportation Coalition (AgTC).

The commitment letters "are meant only to assure importers that shipments have been harvested, processed and handled consistent with industry safety standards and guidelines from medical experts," the report said. 

The request for official guarantees is resulting in some shippers opting to forego the China trade, the report claimed, without elaborating. 

Questions sent to AgTC seeking comments on the commitment statements went unanswered as of press time. 

Demands for internationally acceptable virus-free guarantees are well justified to ensure the safety of food and agriculture cargoes, said Bai Ming, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation.

The US that had taken the lead in banning travel from China early this year in an attempt to stop the spread of the coronavirus outbreak has no grounds for not abiding by Chinese demands presently, Bai told the Global Times on Sunday, lambasting those intentionally shunning Chinese coronavirus-related public health requirements for "double standards."

As part of broad-based efforts to contain the virus amid mounting fears of a second wave of coronavirus, Chinese customs have toughened controls on especially meat imports from COVID-19 hotspots. 

The General Administration of Customs (GAC) earlier in June suspended pork imports from COVID-19-hit German meatpacker Toennies. The GAC also suspended imports from Tyson Foods, one of the top meat producers in the US, over cluster infections earlier in the month.

Adding fears of a second bout with the pandemic, the US reported 45,255 new cases on Friday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the first time the figure topped the 40,000 mark and the second day of record high spikes. 

Coronavirus-free guarantees could put an added burden on exporters and that's not something exclusively demanded by Chinese authorities, Gao Lingyun, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Such guarantees are intended to diffuse worries prevalently among farm produce importers, Gao said, stressing that "we are glad to see commitment statements from overseas industry groups" that attest to coronavirus-proof shipments to China.

Some exporters might temporarily steer clear of China trade due to a toughening stance on shipment declarations and it's even possible that such sentiment would be taken advantage of by those with ulterior motives, but the implementation of the phase one trade deal between China and the US is unlikely to take a battering from the pullback by some shippers, according to Gao who closely follows the China-US trade tensions.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro's recent blunder over the phase one trade pact led to a swift rollercoaster in markets across the world, an unambiguous indication that any moves standing in the way of the trade deal are unwelcomed. 

The US is a major source of China's farm products imports. China's imports of agricultural products grew up 8.8 percent year-on-year to $37.31 billion in the first quarter of the year, while exports shrank 5.7 percent to $16.37 billion, per data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Total farm produce trade was up 3.9 percent year-on-year to $53.68 billion during the first three months. 


Newspaper headline: Don’t follow double standards