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China is playing us

Joe Harris

Bismarck

When he last came to North Dakota, President Trump called us the “bank” that other countries are robbing, and I agree.

Our trade imbalance with China is at $376 billion, and $50 billion more gets lost because of their piracy of our property.

Let’s be real about this issue: China knows what they are doing. While these Chinese practices seem to focus on intellectual property and manufacturing, we know their abusive trade practices are also affecting North Dakota’s farmers and ranchers. Whereas China embraces the procurement of technology to achieve world leadership, they unfairly stifle innovative American agricultural science, like genetically engineered crops. In addition, they regularly exceed their World Trade Organization obligation subsidy limits on corn, wheat, and rice to the tune of $100 billion a year. Thankfully, we are constructively moving towards resolution with Mexico, Canada, and the European Union. Although the probability of non-reciprocal trade with China is significant, the tools to rectify it are limited.

The president’s use of tariffs on Chinese products is not my preferred trade negotiation method. As we have seen, China swiftly responded to the United States’ action with retaliatory tariffs on our ag products including soybeans, corn, wheat, beef, and pork. The collateral damage China’s retaliation has had on all of our agriculture producers has been effective and is placing political pressure on the president to back down. This has all been by design and directly why they picked our ag products for retaliation. They are purposely agitating the president’s supporter base in hopes the internal strife will make us drop our actions to develop fair trade with them.

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