A private Chinese importer in the midst of a trade war between the two countries, for the first time in the United States acquired American rice.

A Chinese importer bought two containers, about 40 tons of medium grain rice, from Sun Valley Rice, a California-based company, said Michael Klein, spokesman for USA Rice, a US grain trading group.

According to Klein, American rice was ground and bagged for consumers and catering establishments. Before the outbreak of the trade war, China was the main buyer of American soy and pork.

After meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, US President Donald Trump said on Monday July 1 that China agreed to make unannounced new purchases of US agricultural products, but it has not yet been established which crops China is purchasing.

It is also unclear whether buying rice was a goodwill gesture after the Trump-X meeting. The rice deal followed the sale of 544,000 tons of US soybeans to China, confirmed last week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the largest such sale since March.

China is the world's largest producer and consumer of rice, which produced 148.5 million tons of grain in the marketing year 2018-2019 and imported 3.5 million tons.