This Friday, simmering trade tensions between the world's top two economies are set to erupt into a full-blown trade war, with Washington poised to impose new tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese goods.
Beijing has pledged to hit back dollar for dollar, placing a new tax on American goods like cherries, soybeans, cars, pork and whiskey, putting them at a disadvantage to their global rivals.
Washington's list is heavy on tech goods, while Beijing has put politically sensitive US farm goods in the firing line. To lessen the domestic effects of this, Beijing is searching for replacements. Therefore, According to Zhao Xiaoyu, a Beijing fruit merchant, Chinese consumers will be biting into domestic cherries while the country seeks to import from other countries, including Turkey.
The looming trade war also has US traders and growers worried. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was informed last month that growers with 1.5 million boxes of cherries ready for China are panicking. They're worried those cherries are going to end up stuck at the dock or rotting in a warehouse due to China's retaliation.
Zhao, the Beijing cherry importer, said existing contracts for this year's cherry harvest would make it hard to stop buying American cherries altogether. But: "If we lose some money on contracts this year, there's nothing we can do about it. If it's still going on next year, we'll go straight to Turkey and Uzbekistan."
Dailysabah.com reports how Turkey, ranking first in cherry production and third in exports in global statistics, is aiming to become the main shareholder in the Chinese market, one of the largest consumer markets in the world.
