Chinese tariffs of up to 25 percent on $60bn in US imported goods take effect in retaliation for US measures.
Hong Kong – Vitasoy has been producing its popular malted soymilk in its home base of Hong Kong, as well as Shanghai and Shenzhen on the Chinese mainland, since the 1940s. But the trade war between the United States and China has forced it to make some radical changes to how it sources its most important raw material: soya beans.
And as China’s latest retaliatory tariffs against goods from the US come into effect from Saturday, more companies could find themselves in a similar situation.
Soya beans have become a particularly contentious issue between China and the US.
The US exported about $14.2bn worth of soya beans to China in 2016, according to the US Census Bureau. Yet that number had dropped to less than $3.2bn by 2018, when the first wave of tit-for-tat tariffs hit. And according to a report by Bloomberg this week, China – the world’s biggest consumer of the commodity – has now put all purchases of US soya beans on hold. The outbreak of African swine fever in China has also put a dampener on demand there.
Soya beans are grown in many of the states where US President Donald Trump derives much of his support, potentially giving Beijing an economic weapon with which to defend itself.Companies like Vitasoy and other soy importers are now looking to source their soya beans elsewhere, resulting in an oversupply of the crop in the US – and in global prices dropping sharply.“Vitasoy has been adopting [an] agile procurement strategy to diversify the source of raw materials geographically,” Stella Lung, a senior public relations manager for Vitasoy International, told Al Jazeera. “Currently, both Hong Kong and mainland China businesses haven’t purchased any soybeans from the US,” Lung added.The impact of the trade war on soya beans – and the companies that deal with them – are but one front in a growing dispute between the world’s two largest economies. Many other industries, commodities and entire economies are being affected. Source :aljazeera.com
Sunday, May 3, 2026
