How Protests in China Against Zero-COVID Lockdowns are Impacting the Grain Markets

You may have read about the recent protests going on in China over their harsh COVID lockdown policies. Market analyst Rick Hollister, who is also a Senior Merchant with The Andersons, says those protests and China’s ongoing, long-term zero-COVID policies are creating a lot of uncertainty in the grain markets.
“That uncertainty in China is creating volatility not just in the grains, but also in the crude oil markets and even the metals markets because China is a big producer of certain kinds of metals for these newer-style batteries,” according to Hollister.
He says it’s too soon to tell whether the situation in China will ultimately help or hurt trade with the U.S.
“You could make a case that the protests – or cracking down on the protests – could mean China will come back and buy more food and feed products to keep inflation under control in their country and try and keep their populace a little happier,” says Hollister. “You could also make the case that there’s enough turmoil that the last thing that they’re worried about is importing more grains or what the price of grain is around the world.”
Hollister says the Chinese government on the surface appears to be handling the protests far differently today – compared to the deadly Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests that were held against the Chinese government back in 1989.
“It will be interesting to see how the Communist government responds,” says Hollister. “So far, they’ve been pretty restrained – but, as far as the actual clamping down on the protests, we haven’t seen anything like Tiananmen Square where there were there were just a lot of people that were killed in those events back in the late 80s. We’ll see how this Communist party president works through it with his country.”
According to the USDA – China is the largest buyer and number one market for U.S. ag exports.
Click BELOW to hear C.J. Miller’s news report and interview with Rick Hollister, Senior Merchant with The Andersons.

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