imports

Bangkok, Thailand – Stewed, seasoned with sugar and cloves, deep-fried or dished up in a zingy chilli mince – the diets of most Thais are incomplete without pork.

But a $3bn market – supplied nearly entirely by domestic pig farmers – may be about to face competition like never before from the giant hog farms of the world’s third-largest producer, the United States.

While the fine print of the Thai government’s preliminary trade deal with the US is yet to be revealed, some details have emerged.

Washington has a 10,000-item-long wish list of goods it wants to enter Thailand duty-free to reduce its $45.5bn trade deficit with the Southeast Asian country, an imbalance President Donald Trump says unfairly disadvantages US producers.

The list includes pork, corn, soya beans and some fruits.

Shortly after Trump met Thailand’s caretaker prime minister, Anutin Charnvirakul, on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Malaysia last month, the White House revealed some of the many strings attached to its trade deal, which set the tariff rate for the kingdom’s exports to the US at 19 percent.

They include Thailand agreeing to “address and prevent barriers to US food and agricultural products in the Thai market”, according to the White House, and a commitment to “expediting access” for US meat and poultry products.

That has panicked Thailand’s pig farmers, who say the industry may not survive a flood of cheaper, subsidised US pork, which is fattened up on ractopamine, a livestock additive banned in many countries, including the kingdom.

If US pork is allowed into Thailand without duties, nothing less than the kingdom’s food security is at stake, according to Worawut Siripun, deputy secretary-general of the Swine Raisers Association of Thailand.

“Producers will not be able to survive and will stop raising pigs. But the risks are not only for farms facing falling pig prices,” Worawut, who has about 10,000 pigs, told Al Jazeera.

“Those who grow feed crops are also affected, as well as animal feed traders, animal feed producers, and veterinary drug sellers. Everyone in the production cycle is impacted.”

Trump had made trade talks with Thailand contingent on Bangkok signing an extended ceasefire agreement with Cambodia.

But in the weeks since meeting Anutin, Thailand has suspended truce talks over alleged Cambodian breaches of the terms of the agreement.

While there are conflicting signals over whether tensions with Cambodia have put Thailand’s trade negotiations with its biggest export destination on the back burner, farmers and livestock companies are bracing for intensified competition.

Thailand’s pork industry has weathered challenges ranging from outbreaks of swine flu to illegal imports from China and Vietnam.

But it faces high costs, largely as a result of government price controls on corn and soya used to feed pigs and other livestock – a measure intended to protect the country’s crop farmers, a key voting bloc.

And like most of Thailand’s agricultural producers, the country’s pig farmers deal with slim margins.

“Both imported and locally produced feed materials in Thailand are more expensive compared to the US, where feed is cheaper,” Worawut said.

Corn and other feed farmers are also bracing for tough times.

Thailand announced earlier this month that it would lift its annual corn import limit, from approximately 50,000 tonnes to 1 million tonnes, and scrap a 20 percent tariff to appease Washington.

Prime Minister Anutin is likely to dissolve parliament in the coming weeks and set a date for new elections.

He is angling to return to office in defiance of critics who say he has already given away too much to Washington before a comprehensive trade deal has been signed.

Trump officials have already announced a deal to gain preferential access to Thailand’s rare earths, the sale of billions of dollars of US-made aircraft and a promise by Bangkok not to tax US digital services companies.

Anutin’s bargaining position has been weakened by tough economic conditions.

On Monday, the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council trimmed its economic growth forecast for 2026 to 1.2 percent, down from an expected 2 percent expansion this year – by far the weakest performance among Southeast Asia’s leading economies.

With a third round of trade talks with the US under a cloud following the suspension of the Thailand-Cambodia peace deal, the main political opposition party has called on the government to pause the negotiations and consult with local stakeholders.

“This is a crucial moment,” said Weerayut Karnchuchat, deputy leader of the opposition People’s Party, Thailand’s largest in parliament.

“The minister of commerce has said negotiations will conclude by the end of 2025. That leaves around two months. The government should hold eight weeks of stakeholder hearings … especially groups directly affected, such as corn farmers.”

Thailand should take stock and assess if regional peers with full US trade deals – including Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia – are happy with the outcomes and “whether Thailand is offering too much”, he added.

For many midsized businesses, the return of Trump and his trade war has made for a difficult year, with demand depressed across countless supply chains exposed to the US.

Orders are retreating inside Thailand for everything from lightbulbs to electrical wires needed to run factories that export to the US.

Tipok Lertwattanaweerakul, a durian farmer and middleman, said he has seen his profit margins slashed.

Saudi Arabian buyers who sold durian to customers in the US had been Lertwattanaweerakul’s main source of business, but with the Arab country hit with a 10 percent tariff, “they are no longer purchasing from me at all,” he told Al Jazeera.

Diplomatic dispute deepens between Tokyo and Beijing over Taiwan remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

China will again ban all imports of Japanese seafood as a diplomatic dispute between the two countries escalates, Japanese media report.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK and Kyodo News agency said on Wednesday that the seafood ban follows after China earlier this month lifted import restrictions on Japanese marine products, which were imposed by Beijing in 2023 after the release of treated radioactive water from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea.

Kyodo News, referencing sources with knowledge of the matter, said China has told Japan that the reimposition of the ban was due to the need for further monitoring of the water from Fukushima released into the Pacific Ocean.

But the ban comes amid a deepening crisis in relations between Beijing and Tokyo over remarks by Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. The premier told parliament on November 7 that a Chinese attack on Taiwan, which threatened Japan’s survival, was one of the few cases that could trigger a military response from Tokyo.

Takaichi’s comments were met with a wave of criticism by Chinese officials and state media, prompting Japan to warn its citizens in China to take safety precautions and avoid crowded places.

In a post on X following Takaichi’s comments, the Chinese consul general in Osaka, Xue Jian, threatened to “cut off that dirty neck”, apparently referring to the Japanese prime minister. Tokyo said it had summoned the Chinese ambassador over the now-deleted social media post.

Beijing has also advised Chinese citizens to avoid travelling to Japan and demanded that Takaichi retract her remarks, though Tokyo said they were in line with the government’s position.

Seeking to defuse the row, Masaaki Kanai, Japan’s top official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Asia Pacific region, held talks on Tuesday in Beijing with his Chinese counterpart, Liu Jinsong.

“During the consultations, China once again lodged a strong protest with Japan” over “Takaichi’s erroneous remarks”, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning said.

“Takaichi’s fallacies seriously violate international law and the basic norms governing international relations”, Mao said, adding the Japanese premier’s comments “fundamentally damage the political foundation of China-Japan relations”.

‘Very dissatisfied’

Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, said the visit by Kanai to Beijing was seen as an effort by Tokyo to de-escalate tensions and communicate to China that Japan’s stance on independently-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory, has not changed despite Takaichi’s remarks.

“It seems there were no concrete outcomes, but what we have seen, though, is some footage following the meeting of these two diplomats parting ways, and I think it really speaks for itself. We have very cold body language from both of these diplomats,” Yu said.

“Liu Jinsong had his hands in his pockets, refusing to shake hands with the Japanese senior diplomat,” Yu said, adding that the Chinese official said afterwards that he was “very dissatisfied” with the meeting.

Liu Jinsong, director-general of the Department of Asian Affairs of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, met with Masaaki Kanai, director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, on Tuesday.

Following the meeting, Masaaki Kanai has left the Chinese… pic.twitter.com/rdAy2YJruQ

— China News 中国新闻网 (@Echinanews) November 18, 2025

Before the most recent seafood ban, China accounted for more than one-fifth of Japan’s seafood exports, according to official data.

The dispute has also engulfed other areas of China-Japan relations, with China Film News, which is supervised by the state-backed China Film Administration, announcing that the release of two imported Japanese movies would be postponed amid the dispute.

The two movies were originally expected to be released on December 6 and November 22, respectively, according to review site Douban.

Foreign minister says Budapest ‘obtained an indefinite exemption from the sanctions’ on Russian oil and gas shipments.

Hungary’s foreign minister says Budapest has secured an indefinite waiver from US sanctions on Russian oil and gas imports, as a White House official reiterated that the exemption was for only a period of one year.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday to press for a reprieve after the US last month imposed sanctions on Russian oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft.

After the meeting, Orban told Hungarian media that Budapest had “been granted a complete exemption from sanctions” affecting Russian gas delivered to Hungary from the TurkStream pipeline, and oil from the Druzhba pipeline.

But a White House official later told the Reuters news agency that Hungary had been granted a one-year exemption from sanctions connected to using Russian energy.

On Saturday, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said there would be no sanctions for “an indefinite period”.

“The prime minister was clear. He has agreed with the US President [Donald Trump] that we have obtained an indefinite exemption from the sanctions,” Szijjarto wrote on Facebook.

“There are no sanctions on oil and gas shipments to Hungary for an indefinite period.”

However, a White House official repeated in an email to the Reuters news agency on Saturday that the exemption is for one year.

Hungary expected to buy US LNG

The White House official who spoke to Reuters added that Hungary would also diversify its energy purchases and had committed to buying US liquefied natural gas with contracts valued at some $600m.

Orban has maintained close ties with both Moscow and Washington, while often bucking the rest of the EU on pressuring Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

The Hungarian leader offered to host a summit in Budapest between Trump and Putin, although the US leader called it off in October and hit Moscow with sanctions for the first time in his presidency.

Budapest relies heavily on Russian energy, and Orban, 15 years in power, faces a close election next year.

International Monetary Fund figures show Hungary bought 74 percent of its gas and 86 percent of its oil from Russia in 2024, warning that an EU-wide cutoff of Russian natural gas alone could cost Hungary more than 4 percent of its GDP.

Orban said that, without the agreement, energy costs would have surged, hitting the wider economy, pushing up unemployment and generating “unbearable” price rises for households and firms.