Ag Trade: Coronavirus Changes Views Of Globalization, Food Interdependency
By Shannon Andrea
Virginia Tech
While progress was being made on the U.S.-China Phase One agricultural deal with changes to regulations on non-tariff barriers, COVID-19 has raised questions about diversifying suppliers for world-wide trade.
“We saw lower buying activity from China in January and February of 2020, just as China was starting to offer tariff waivers to facilitate import purchases from the U.S.” said Virginia Tech expert Jason Grant, associate professor of agricultural and applied economics at Virginia Tech.