predictions on China trade deal

Posted on: January 13, 2020 at 08:38:09 CT

So we are two days from getting details on the deal. some was given over the weekend on some various shows.

what are people's predictions outside of the usual rhetoric of R vs D.

Looks like US tariffs will be cut in approximately half....I think this is still at our above previous Trump levels, so they are still high.

The Ag numbers they are touting make no sense (40-50 billion). In our best year (~2104) we exported about $24 billion, and that was a year of very high soy prices.

I was at a conference last week, and the speaker said our entire soy crop is worth $36 billion....and they don't need that much soy....they will for sure buy more pork (they already have bought more monthly product in the last two months than they have ever bought), but that only seems to come out at maybe $2 billion a month. A surprise factor could be if they open to beef.

I could see us going to 30-35 billion in exports, but I think 50 billion could be very difficult.

It looks like there is nothing on IP in this round.

At best, it looks like we are returning to about where Trump started, but he will, of course, declare victory