Ensuring that China’s 1.4 billion citizens are adequately fed continues to top the policy agenda. While the Asian giant remains a key export market for largely Republican states in the Midwest farm belt, Beijing’s efforts to reconfigure supply chains after the trade war during the first Trump presidency have weakened Washington’s leverage.

Chinese and Canadian retaliatory tariffs are aimed at agricultural, manufacturing and energy sectors that employ millions of Americans.

The leaders of both Canada and Mexico got on the phone with President Donald Trump this past week to seek solutions after he slapped tariffs on their countries, but China’s president appears unlikely to make a similar call soon.