Food export rejection can be a harmful barrier to sustainable international food trade. To understand China's export food rejected by FDA (Food and Drug Administration) of the United States, we analyzed 4047 cases of rejection from February 2011 to July 2017. Although the number of rejected food exported from China to the United States has been declining, and the quality has been improving, there is still space for improvement. Of the 4047 cases of rejection, the Guangdong, Fujian and Shandong provinces were the top three with the largest number of rejected food (1253 (31%), 520 (12.8%), and 508 (12.6%), respectively) (being rejected mainly in New York and Los Angeles). The top four types of rejected food involved fruits and vegetables, fishery and seafood products, bakery products, grain and related processed products. More importantly, the major reasons for rejection can be attributed to problems in maintaining food safety, namely: (1) the food contained filth, decay, decomposition or other substances; (2), the food contained toxic and harmful substances (e.g., suspected melamine, chemical insecticides, or lead); and (3) the food contained agricultural and veterinary drugs. The results are of great implications for the United States to regulate the imported food from China, and for China to improve the quality and safety of export food. © 2018 by the authors.