Analysis of the Impact of U.S. Trade Policy Uncertainty on China’s Grain Trade

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper titled “Analysis of the Impact of U.S. Trade Policy Uncertainty on China's Grain Trade” examines the effects of U.S. trade policy uncertainty on China’s imports and exports of grains utilizing a vector autoregressive model. The authors find that the effects of such uncertainties on China’s grain trade have considerably changed over the years, and they also seem to differ by type of grain.

 

This is an important topic that deserves careful research. Below, I outline a few suggestions to improve the paper:

1- During the period covered in the analysis, WTO members were eliminating part of their agricultural subsidies, see Paz et al (2024). Are these changes captured by the empirical methodology? Do they matter?

2- Does China’s accession to the WTO (also see Paz et al, 2024) had an effect on Grains Trade? By being a WTO member, it is expected that China would be less affected by policy fluctuations, since it can always start a dispute in the WTO’s settlement system.

3- The article does no mention whether other grain producers in the world do trade with China, for instance, Brazil, Argentina, or Australia. What is the rational for excluding these countries from the analysis? Would there be third country effects?

 

References:

Paz, L.S., dos Reis, M. & de Azevedo, A.F.Z. New Evidence on WTO Membership After the Uruguay Round: An Analysis at the Sectoral Level. Open Econ Rev 35, 1–39 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11079-023-09717-6

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Usual spell and grammar check is recommended.

Author Response

请参阅附件。

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Please address these points:

1. Provide references for all applied methods and some similar studies as references.

2. Provide some policy documents and instrument in the Intro section that are directly about your case and content.

3. Provide a long list of references in the discussion section including in the field of this study.

4. Provide suggestions for future research in the conclusions section.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Needs some editing.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article concerns an important issue: the impact of trade policy on the level of grain trade. This is an important topic in the context of food security and its disruptions due to dynamic changes in recent years, such as the pandemic or the war between the main grain producers in the world. The work examines the time-varying impact of U.S. trade policy uncertainty on grain trade in China by constructing a vector autoregressive model with stochastic variability and using data from 2003 to 2022. The methods and materials used seem sufficient and appropriate. The conclusions were presented correctly. However, I have a few comments:

- line 103-105 - it is worth explaining why China became the main target of changing the US trade policy, what political and economic activities of China forced the US to change its trade policy. It is worth looking at this problem from the perspective of the other side of trade relations.

- point 2.2. – the U.S. was presented too briefly. trade policy uncertainty, it is necessary to discuss in detail how to understand the word "uncertainty", and indicate that specific examples of such situations will be given in point 4.2.1

-line 191-196- may consumers delay consumption for fear of worsening future economic conditions for food? Or is there a phenomenon of stockpiling and, at least temporarily, increased demand for food? we experienced this, for example, during the covid19 pandemic

- figure 3 and table 1 - which country does this trade concern? You need to provide a source of data

- the discussion lacks references to other people's research and literature - please complete it, add more world literature and contemporary research

- in conclusion, it may be worth mentioning how an increase in domestic production may affect the state of the natural environment and whether such production intensity may pose any threats.

Best regards

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

First of all, I would like to say that the authors have chosen an interesting topic and delivered an interesting paper.

However, there are some important parts missing that I would like to comment on.

First of all, I do not really see the reasons why this article should be published in Sustainability. It is clearly devoted to International Grain Trade problems and would be better suited for specific journals. There is not even one single mention of sustainability problems in the paper.

If the authors want to be published in a Sustainability journal, they need to add more material about the influence of grain trade on sustainable development.

Regarding the contents of the paper.

 Abstract and Introduction

What are the objectives of the study? What are the Hypotheses of the study?

The Introduction should be rewritten. The authors need to briefly describe the problem, highlight the missing parts in existing scientific works, claim their objective, and explain why this paper is important.

31-33

The authors mention the data from 2011 to 2015 and from 2020 to 2022. It would be better to describe the whole period from 2011 to 2022.

45-46

The authors write about the decreasing US food production index and China’s food imports. They don't explain the connection between those indicators. Furthermore, those indicators differ in their evaluation metrics—tons vs. index. The authors’ ideas should be described better.

50

“… we can’t have …” It is better to avoid using “we” in this case. Usually, in papers, “We” means “we, the authors.” Here, it means “we, the people of China.”

76

Perhaps it is better to write World Trade Organization (WTO) when you mention WTO at first.

 

The Discussion section should be rewritten. The authors should read the MDPI recommendations to fill this part with relevant content.

The Conclusion section is not connected to the Research results. Clearly, these are not conclusions of the paper, these are simple and obvious statements that are well-known and not new at all. If the authors do not have any new conclusions, they should at least prove these old statements with the results of their study.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have performed a good job and covered all my questions. 

Author Response

Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript carefully. And thanks for the reviewer's insightful comments concerning our manuscript.