A Study On The Impact Of US Trade Policy Uncertainty On China’s Soybean Import Trade

As the earliest and largest imported bulk agricultural product in China,soybeans are an important trade cooperation crop with complementary needs and overlapping interests between China and the United States.Especially since china’s accession to the WTO,China’s soybean imports have been rising,and the United States has become one of China’s largest soybean trading partners,but at the same time,the United States is also a major source of trade policy uncertainty for China’s soybean import trade.At present,trade protectionism is heating up,the uncertainty and risk of Sino-US economic and trade relations have intensified.During the Sino-US trade war in 2018,China retaliated to U.S.trade actions by levying a 25%retaliatory tariff on U.S.soybean exports,and the number of Chinese soybean imports fell for the first time in seven years.Under this background,this paper sorts out the transmission channels and effects of U.S.trade policy uncertainty on China’s soybean import trade,objectively describes the dynamic relationship between U.S.trade policy uncertainty and China’s soybean import trade,empirically analyzes the impact of U.S.trade policy uncertainty on China’s soybean import trade,and puts forward relevant measures to reduce the impact of U.S.trade policy uncertainty on China’s soybean import trade.It is of great practical significance to ensure the stable supply security of soybean and even the national food security.Based on literature review,relevant concepts and theoretical basis,this paper firstly sorts out the transmission channels and effects that the uncertainty of U.S.trade policy affects China’s soybean import trade.The transmission channels mainly include domestic policies and financial market,and the effects affecting China’s soybean import trade mainly include trade effect and substitution effect.Secondly,this paper objectively describes the dynamic relationship between the uncertainty of U.S.trade policy and China’s soybean import trade,mainly from four aspects: China’s soybean import price,China’s soybean import scale,China’s soybean import dependence,and China’s soybean import market structure.Thirdly,based on relevant monthly and annual data,this paper adopts the ARDL-based error correction model(ECM)and mediation effect analysis to empirically analyze the impact of the uncertainty of U.S.trade policy on China’s soybean import trade.The results show that :(1)The long-term increase in the uncertainty of U.S.trade policy will lead to the increase of China’s soybean import,the increase of China’s soybean import market concentration rate,and the decrease of China’s import dependence on U.S.soybeans.(2)The short-term increase in the uncertainty of U.S.trade policy will lead to the increase of China’s soybean import,the concentration of China’s soybean import market and the number of source countries for China’s soybean imports,as well as the decrease of China’s soybean import dependence and China’s import dependence on U.S.soybeans.(3)The rise of U.S.trade policy uncertainty will significantly raise tariffs on Chinese soybeans from the United States and promote corn imports which is a substitute for Chinese imported soybeans,and the quantity of corn imported by China and the quantity of soybeans imported from other countries will increase simultaneously by affecting the psychological expectations of Soybean importers in China.That is,the rising uncertainty of US trade policy has a limited negative impact on China’s soybean import trade,but it has a positive effect on the concentration of China’s soybean import market.Therefore,we should be vigilant that the high concentration of China’s soybean import market will increase the risk of China being subject to a large soybean export country.In particular,it increases the risk that price fluctuations in the international soybean market will be transmitted to the domestic soybean market through import channels.Finally,suggestions are put forward to reduce the impact of the uncertainty of US trade policy on China’s soybean import trade from four aspects: strengthening the financial guarantee role of China’s soybean market,gradually reducing the dependence of China’s soybean import,increasing the stable supply of China’s soybean import market,and strengthening the monitoring and early warning of global soybean market information.The innovation of this research lies in: first,the research perspective is new.This paper studies the impact of uncertainty of US trade policy on China’s soybean import trade,taking into account the significant spillover effect of uncertainty of US trade policy,and sorting out its impact on China’s soybean import trade through two transmission channels of domestic policy and financial market.The effects of the uncertainty of US trade policy on China’s soybean import trade are analyzed,including trade effect and substitution effect.And this paper describes the dynamic relationship between the uncertainty of US trade policy and China’s soybean import trade from four aspects of China’s soybean import price,China’s soybean import scale,China’s soybean import dependence and China’s soybean import market structure since China’s accession to the WTO,providing practical basis for subsequent research.Second,research method innovation.In this paper,an autoregressed-distributed lag(ARDL)-error correction(ECM)model is used to analyze the impact of short-term and long-term US trade policy uncertainty on China’s soybean import price,China’s soybean import quantity,China’s soybean import dependence rate and China’s soybean import market structure by monthly and annual data.At the same time,the mediating effect analysis method is used to measure the degree of mediating effect of us trade policy uncertainty on China’s soybean import quantity.The influence of the uncertainty of US trade policy on China’s soybean import trade is measured more comprehensively.