Sources for Friedman Piece
Subject: Sources for Friedman Piece
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: 3/4/09, 11:43
To: jbishop@vanityfair.com

J-

Here's source material regarding U.S.'s failure to sell sugar to China:

http://www.hardassetsinvestor.com/features-and-interviews/1/608-not-so-sweet-us-sugar-sales-to-asia-unlikely-to-see-boom.html?Itemid=64

Key quote: "And exactly where are those Chinese imports coming from? The Xinhua report says of the total imports, 660,000 tons, or 95.5 percent, came from Cuba, Thailand, Guatemala, the Republic of Korea, Brazil and Australia. Even the imports from Cuba, Brazil and Australia went down, while those from Thailand and Guatemala went up. They’d have to really work those field reps to improve the U.S. position on this list."

Regarding wheat:

http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/whs/may04/whs04D01/whs04D01.pdf

To summarize, China has actually decreased its imports of American wheat over the past twelve years; as of 2007, U.S. wheat sales to China were down over 81% from 2003 – by which time China's total wheat imports had already fallen well below those of 1997.