There have been some interesting shifts in the global trade of dairy products that aren’t apparent on the surface. Chinese milk-equivalent import growth slowed from 13% in the first quarter of 2019 to an estimated 1.7% in the second quarter.
It would be easy to argue that the slowdown is being driven by slower economic growth and consequently weaker demand — or to blame it on retaliatory tariffs raising the cost of imported dairy products — but there are drastically different trends for imports of human food versus animal feed.