[topsail]

In 2013 China bought “Smithfield” the worlds largest pork processor and all Smithfield owned companies. Well known brands such as Armour brand canned meat. Google
Smithfield owned companies and you will be surprised by the long list of familiar names that we all buy and support China.

I try not to buy any of them if I can remember.

[sphinx]

Yes, Chinese interests own Smithfield. Smithfield still buys U.S. hogs and butchers, processes and markets them here using U.S. land and labor. That package of bacon on the supermarket shelf is still an American product, just as a Toyota vehicle made in Princeton, Indiana, is an American-made product.

China bought Smithfield for several reasons. An important one was to buy U.S. production and quality control expertise, which they can use to improve their own production. (China is the world's leading producer and consumer of pork products.) Another, of course, was to buy into the U.S. production and distribution system as a foundation for increasing Chinese imports of U.S.-produced product. I am all in favor of China buying more U.S. pork. I care much more about the pig being raised in Iowa on corn grown in Iowa, and being processed in a plant employing U.S. workers, than I am about whose label is on the package.

The politics of this get quite intricate. China is very skittish about becoming import-dependent for basic food commodities, pork being high on the list for Chinese consumers. Chinese-owned foreign assets help ease China's apprehensions about increased import dependence. There's a fair amount of irrationality involved in that. In a real crisis, China would lose access to (and possibly ownership of) U.S.-based plants. But still, the notion of Chinese ownership eases Chinese concerns about import dependence.