Reading the last pages in Craig about China’s most recent history and its rapid economic development got me thinking about the US-China Trade War. Recently in January, Trump and the Vice Premier Liu He of China, signed Phase I of the trade deal after the start of the trade war in 2018. This is a small step in the right direction as, the trade war has had some very interesting and unintended consequences.
Last semester I took a course on US and the Asia Pacific. We focused a lot on US foreign policies with different Asian countries and spent some time on the trade war. I was so shocked to be informed about all of the unforeseen issues stemming from the trade war. One of these being the degradation of our environment. Since the United States put massive tariffs on the China’s import of our agricultural products, China went seeking crops elsewhere. One the places China turned to for soybeans was Brazil. This was great news for Brazil’s economy because they now have a huge new market for their soybean production. However, China’s demand for soybeans is exceptionally high and Brazil needed to make up for all the production that China was no longer getting from the US. In order to make room to grow more soybeans, Brazil cut down more parts of the amazon rainforest which supplies 25 percent of the world’s oxygen. This is a huge environmental concern that needs to be carefully monitored for the sake of humanity’s future.
What is interesting about the article that I previously linked is that the South China Morning Post is a Chinese newspaper, so it is obviously bias in the fact that it completely failed to mention the negative environmental consequences of the trade war. This reminds me that it is important to always consult other sources when trying to form your own informed opinion on an issue.