US–China trade war imperils Amazon rainforest

Abstract

[...]exports of US soya beans to China dropped by 50% in 2018, even though the trade war began only midway through the year. [...]even under the most optimistic scenarios, millions more hectares of the Amazon rainforest are now threatened. First and foremost, China and the United States should publicly acknowledge their roles in indirectly driving tropical deforestation, and take immediate action to at least remove trade tariffs on the crop. Since the early 2000s, China has decreased the amount of land it dedicates to soya-bean production by around 25%, in part because it is cheaper to import from Brazil.