Farmers are skeptical of the partial trade pact Trump announced with China | Markets Insider

t
• President Donald Trump said last week that the US and China reached the "greatest and biggest deal ever" for American farmers.
t
• But questions over the announcement have mounted since then, particularly within the agricultural sector.
t
• Bloomberg reported Tuesday that China was unlikely to reach the quota, which was more than twice the amount of agricultural products the country imported from the US in 2017.
t
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

President Donald Trump said last week that the US and China reached the "greatest and biggest deal ever" for American farmers. But questions over the announcement have mounted since then, particularly within the agricultural sector.

As part of a partial trade ceasefire reached Friday, the Trump administration said China had pledged to purchase an annual $40 billion to $50 billion in US farm exports over two years. Terms of the agreement were still subject to documentation, however, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Monday.

Bloomberg reported Tuesday that China was unlikely to reach the quota, which is more than twice the amount of agricultural products the country imported from the US in 2017. And in order to agree to agricultural terms, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg, China could request that the US lift some of the tariffs it has levied over the past year.

"It's gamesmanship, and it's getting old," said Dave Walton, a soybean and corn farmer in Iowa. "The Chinese have pulled this tactic before in grain trade."

When asked to confirm the figures Trump laid out, the Chinese embassy in Washington demurred. The embassy referred Business Insider to public comments by foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang, who recently told reporters that the country would buy an unspecified amount of American agricultural goods.

The White House declined to comment on the matter. The Office of the US Trade Representative did not respond to an email inquiry.

Industry groups, including the bipartisan Farmers for Free Trade, welcomed the announcement but remained skeptical. In a statement, the group stressed that details about the timeline, prices, and commodities involved in the pledge remained elusive.

"Farmers have been promised that their patience would be rewarded," the group said. "To date, the deal they've been promised has not come."

Soybean farmers have been hit particularly hard by the 19-month trade dispute with China, which has sent prices and exports of the commodity sharply lower.