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The Wire website published an article on October 6 titled "China has broken through Trump's tariff war, India can draw lessons from it." The article argues that China effectively counterattacked the Trump administration's trade war through "agricultural diplomacy," offering valuable lessons for India. India needs to reissue a call for the "Non-Aligned Movement" through multilateral platforms such as BRICS, promoting paths for regional and BRICS common interests,摆脱 American hegemony, and protecting Indian farmers. The author of this article, Indra Shekhar Singh, is an independent agricultural policy analyst and writer.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has tried to distort international agricultural trade by imposing tariffs, forcing countries to buy U.S. agricultural products, and other means, pressuring many countries including India and Brazil to open their markets to U.S. agricultural products like cotton. However, China was not among them. By refusing to import a series of agricultural products from the U.S., such as soybeans, corn, sorghum, pork, and poultry, China directly hit the core support group of Trump — U.S. farmers, and successfully secured a series of tariff extensions for China. This demonstrates its skillful operations in the field of "agricultural diplomacy."

The key to China's "agricultural diplomacy" lies in its understanding of the dependence of the U.S., as the world's main agricultural producer and exporter, on external markets. Take soybeans as an example: five states — Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Minnesota, and Ohio — produce about 11.9 million metric tons (118.84 million) of soybeans; 70% of North Dakota's genetically modified soybeans need to be exported to the Chinese market. In this context, by simply implementing a policy of "prohibiting the import of U.S. soybeans," China successfully caused overproduction and price drops in the U.S. soybean agricultural supply chain, thus severely damaging the agricultural economy of major U.S. soybean producing areas. At the same time, this situation also occurred in other feed-related agricultural products such as corn and sorghum, and is increasingly affecting livestock agriculture sectors such as poultry, beef, and pork.

China's countermeasures against the Trump administration in the field of "agricultural diplomacy" not only impacted U.S. agricultural regions but even plunged U.S. agriculture into a crisis. Experts analyze that the agricultural crisis triggered by China's countermeasures is the most severe crisis faced by U.S. agriculture since 1980. However, China managed to fill the trade gap caused by its countermeasures through the second stage of "agricultural diplomacy" operations, relying on the BRICS network to achieve import substitution of agricultural products. It can be imagined that if the Trump administration fails to effectively mitigate losses, this agricultural crisis will become a typical case of the "implosion" of Trump's foreign trade policy, damaging his image and support in rural America.

Given the successful experience of China's "agricultural diplomacy" strategy, India urgently needs to explore a multilateral diplomatic strategy that aligns with its own interests, reduces dependence on the U.S., and at the same time takes into account regional and BRICS interests. First, India should strengthen cooperation with China in the agricultural sector, exploring new options such as negotiating to eliminate China's restrictions on Indian agricultural product imports and securing exports of surplus Indian agricultural products to China. Second, India should enhance economic cooperation with BRICS countries, such as importing oil and gas resources from Russia, and importing products that meet India's needs from China, and Russia and China can once again become markets for Indian exports. Finally, India needs to target the EU and other BRICS countries, initiating the "Non-Aligned Movement" again through the BRICS platform, thereby freeing itself from American hegemony while protecting Indian farmers.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7559005998501872162/

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