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Comment by diego | Hacker News Reader

Do you really believe China depends on US soy to feed their population? Where did you get that from?

they use it for pig feed and it's use as a component in many food products. I don't think they technically depend on it, but they depend on it and have to import huge amounts. If they didn't, they'd either have to make a domestic source (they have had trouble with this) or switch to other protein sources.

Or buy them from Brazil. Like they are now since the tariffs happened.

Or buy them from Brazil. Like they are now since the tariffs happened.

It's not a question of switching to Brazil. China was already buying from Brazil. But Brazil doesn't have the capacity to make up for a cut-off of American supplies.

Further, soybeans are seasonal. The reason that China buys from both the U.S. and Brazil is because they have harvests at opposite times of the year. Even if Brazil managed to magically ramp up to fill 100% of China's need in each Brazilian growing season, what is it going to do the other six months of the year?

>It's not a question of switching to Brazil. China was already buying from Brazil. But Brazil doesn't have the capacity to make up for a cut-off of American supplies.

This literally already happened as another poster said...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-05/china-ask...

Many of the pigs are dead thanx to ASF, so they won't be needing huge amounts this year. Also, they have rented vast amounts of land in Ukraine, Africa.

Trump wants a trade agreement with the EU for soy and beef in exchange for not imposing tariffs on cars. It probably won't happen, as the EU is too slow to act and most likely won't accept hormone treated beef.

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