Bangladesh to buy 220,000 T wheat from US in bid to cool tariffs, official says

DHAKA (Reuters) -Bangladesh’s government has approved the purchase of about 220,000 metric tons of wheat from the United States as part of efforts to cool U.S. trade tensions and reduce steep import tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, a Dhaka official said on Wednesday.

Bangladesh has approved the purchase from the United States under a government-to-government deal at a price of $302.75 per ton, the food ministry official said. It will be supplied by a Singapore-based trading house.

Earlier in July, Bangladesh signed a memorandum of understanding to import 700,000 tons of wheat annually from the United States over the next five years.

On July 27, Bangladesh also ordered 25 aircraft from Boeing and ramped up imports of key American goods in an effort to defuse trade tensions.

A Bangladesh government delegation is holding trade talks in the United States this week, officials in Dhaka said.

(Reporting by Ruma Paul; Additional reporting by Michael Hogan in Hamburg and Naveen Thukral in Singapore; Editing by Ros Russell)