Greater Des Moines Partnership CEO Jay Byers visited China April 7-15, and came back optimistic that the trade tensions between the giant Asian country and the United States will ease. 

Byers has been representing the United States on the International Chamber of Commerce World Chambers Federation General Council, and that is what took him to Beijing. He’s serving his second three-year term. Over the past five years, he has also attended events in Australia; Torino, Italy; Tokyo, Japan; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and India. In addition, the Partnership is arranging a separate trip to Beijing, Xian and Shanghai, China, Oct. 10-20. 

“Signals are being sent at the highest levels that both sides want a deal,” Byers said in an interview this week. “Neither side wants a trade war.” 

Byers said both sides appear to be pressuring for talks by considering tariffs that could have a huge effect on Iowa, were they fully implemented. 

Chamber officials representing U.S. interests have waited for decades for China to improve protections for intellectual property and to open markets more broadly, Byers said. “I heard consistently that the feeling is it’s time these issues get addressed,” he said. “Standing up was the right thing at this time. There is a lot of concern that these issues have been pushed down the road for nearly two decades.”

Byers had dinner in Beijing with U.S. Ambassador to China Terry Branstad, his wife, Chris, and Atlantic Bottling exec Kirk Tyler at the ambassador’s residence in Beijing. (By chance, Branstad had scheduled the dinner with Tyler on a day Byers was in town, and invited Jay to crash the party.) 

“The ambassador understands those concerns,” Byers said of Branstad, the former longtime Iowa governor. “The ag groups want to get busy with feeding the world,” rather than worrying about tariffs on soybeans and other products, he added.

“This is a pretty pivotal point in China’s relationship with the United States.”

Byers also visited China operations of Deere & Co.; Principal Financial Group; Vermeer (in Tianjin); Corteva Agriscience (formerly DuPont Pioneer); Faegre Baker Daniels; Dorsey & Whitney; and Iowa state trade representative Wendy Zhang.

That was a fairly ambitious schedule considering Byers also attended a conference about infrastructure work in China. He noted that the traffic in Beijing makes it virtually impossible to get to more than two appointments a day. He estimated he spent 20 hours in traffic.

The Partnership has made international trade a priority through its GlobalDSM program and through work with the international chambers and the U.S. Council for International Business, which focuses on promoting trade. 

For good reason. Iowa exports have been running at $13 billion and above lately. China is the fourth-largest importer of U.S. goods, behind Canada, Mexico and Japan. It is also among the top five importers of Iowa manufactured items and agricultural products, with strong interest in soybeans and pork, among other products, according to federal and state statistics. 

Recommended reading: Byers suggests you grab Harvard scholar Graham Allison’s book, “Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?” It’s an examination of the history of events when emerging nations challenged another that was in effect ruling. He fears that after 16 conflicts that included 12 wars in situations like this in history, China and the United States might be involved in the 17th.