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Wednesday, January 02, 2019

China allows first imports of U.S. rice, but in the meantime has hampered other U.S. exporters with inspections

With the U.S. and China in a nominal cease-fire of the trade war, China is making a conciliatory but possibly symbolic gesture by allowing imports of brown, polished and crushed rice from the United States for the first time, Reuters reports. However, it's unclear how much rice China might actually buy from the U.S.

Meanwhile, China has been creatively hurting U.S. exporters by denying shipments as Chinese inspectors judge them wanting. "Disparate American goods such as oranges, logs, calf skins and even Lincoln vehicles have encountered heightened customs reviews at Chinese ports this year. Multinational companies already accustomed to the sometimes difficult environment have reported an uptick in the number of hurdles they must jump through in order to do business in the increasingly lucrative market," report Megan Cassella of Politico and Chad Bray and Finbarr Bermingham of Hong Kong's independent South China Morning Post. American exporters whose shipments failed inspection have been forced to quickly find other buyers, especially when the product is perishable.

"The total value of products that China imports from the U.S. represents just one-fourth of what it exports, so Beijing cannot match U.S. tariffs dollar for dollar, but China has many other weapons in its arsenal to make doing business painful and costly," Reuters reports. "Chinese officials rarely tie such actions directly to any international tensions, and they often go unnoticed outside the industries that are affected by them, trade experts said. But they are part of a well-worn playbook for the Chinese government, which has used these and other non-tariff barriers for years during political squabbles."

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