China has ramped up inspections of pork shipped from the United States, importers and industry sources said – the latest American product to be hit by a potentially costly slowdown at Chinese ports in the past couple of weeks.
Some trade experts said that they believe that Beijing is sending a defiant warning to Washington in response to sweeping US trade demands made on China last week.
The stepped-up checks have even hit China's WH Group Ltd, the world's largest pork company and owner of Smithfield Foods in the US, amid increasing scrutiny of other US farm goods, including fruit and logs.
Increased Inspections
Ports are opening and inspecting every cargo that arrives, said Luis Chein, a director at WH Group, China's top importer of US pork.
That compares with inspections carried out only "randomly" in the past, Chein told Reuters, significantly lengthening the time that the product stays at the port.
China's General Administration of Customs, which oversees food imports, did not respond to a fax seeking comment.
Increased checks on US products are "not terribly surprising", according to Even Rogers Pay, an agriculture analyst at China Policy, a Beijing-based consultancy.
"In a situation where trade tensions are high, China will enforce every possible regulation on its books. It makes strategic sense to do so at this point," said Rogers Pay.
Expanding Quarantine Checks
Late on Monday, China's customs agency announced that it was stepping up quarantine checks on apples and logs from the United States, after detecting pests in imports of the products at Chinese ports.
US President Donald Trump has threatened tariffs on up to $150 billion of Chinese goods, largely because of US allegations that Beijing misappropriates US technology through joint-venture requirements, unfair licensing practices, outright theft, and state-backed acquisitions of US technology firms. Beijing denies those accusations.
China's top economic official, Liu He, will visit Washington next week to resume trade talks, the White House said on Monday, after a US delegation led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin came away from a visit to Beijing last week with no agreement over a long list of US trade demands.
From Days To Weeks
US pork is now sitting at Chinese ports for up to two weeks, instead of a few days, industry sources told Reuters.
Most of the imported pork is frozen and not at risk of perishing, but the move comes on top of the additional 25% duties Beijing slapped on American pork and a slew of other goods last month, in retaliation for US tariffs on steel and aluminium imports.
The United States is one of China's top overseas pork suppliers, shipping $489 million worth of the meat last year.
A person working at a Shanghai-based meat-trading firm said that customs officials have also been taking samples from about 20% of US pork shipments since last month, up from about 5% previously. He declined to be named because of the sensitive nature of the topic.
There had been no change for imports from other destinations from which the company buys, including Canada and Europe, the person added. Two German pork exporters said that they were not aware of any changes to inspections.
Tariffs Impacting Demand
Stepped-up inspections and sampling were also cited in a 30 April report by the United States Department of Agriculture attaché in Beijing, which clarified that the new measures had started on 23 April but gave no further details.
The tariffs have already cut off demand for muscle cuts, or higher-value pork meat, and pressured the price of so-called 'variety' meat, such as offal and feet – the biggest portion of US pork exports by volume.
In addition, China's domestic hog prices plunged in the first quarter and are still hovering around eight-year lows of about ten yuan ($1.57) per kilo. That has led WH Group to sharply reduce its imports, anyway, this year, added Chein.
China's total pork imports declined by 10%, to 595,611 tonnes, in the first three months of the year, according to Chinese customs.
News by Reuters, edited by ESM. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
