The Associated Press’ Josh Funk reported that “new data the Agriculture Department released Friday created serious doubts about whether China will really buy millions of bushels of American soybeans like the Trump administration touted last month after a high-stakes meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.”
“The USDA report released after the government reopened showed only two Chinese purchases of American soybeans since the summit in South Korea that totaled 332,000 metric tons,” Funk reported. “That’s well short of the 12 million metric tons that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said China agreed to purchase by January and nowhere near the 25 million metric tons she said they would buy in each of the next three years.”
“American farmers were hopeful that their biggest customer would resume buying their crops,” Funk reported. “But CoBank’s Tanner Ehmke, who is its lead economist for grains and oilseed, said there isn’t much incentive for China to buy from America right now because they have plenty of soybeans on hand that they have bought from Brazil and other South American countries this year, and the remaining tariffs ensure that U.S. soybeans remain more expensive than Brazilian soybeans. ‘We are still not even close to what has been advertised from the U.S. in terms of what the agreement would have been,’ Ehmke said.”
China Yet to Confirm Soybean Purchase Commitments
Agri-Pulse’s Kim Chipman, Oliver Ward, and Noah Wicks reported “a Commerce Ministry spokesperson refused to confirm that Chinese purchase commitments of U.S. soybeans were part of a trade deal agreed to late last month. During a regular press conference on Thursday, a reporter asked He Yadong to confirm the White House’s insistence that China will buy 12 million tons of soybeans this year and 25 million annually after that. But He demurred.”
“He directed the reporter to previous information about the arrangement, which he said outlined ‘the main achievements and consensus reached, including on agricultural trade,’” Chipman, Ward, and Wicks reported. “Notably, Chinese documentation and officials’ statements have not yet referred to the purchase commitments. ‘China is an important participant in global agricultural trade and will continue to uphold an open and cooperative attitude,’ He added, according to an unofficial translation.”
“Former USDA economist Fred Gale told Agri-Pulse ‘it seems like they’re being intentionally vague,’” Chipman, Ward and Wicks reported. “But, Gale added that hazy commitments are ‘not out of character’ for Beijing.”
Funk reported that “Trump said his team spoke with Chinese officials (last Friday) and they assured the White House they would be purchasing more soybeans, but he didn’t offer any details of how much.”
USDA Data Also Shows Record U.S. Corn Crop
The Wall Street Journal’s Kirk Maltais reported that “in its World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report published Friday, the USDA said that it sees the 2025/2026 corn crop at 16.75 billion bushels. That is down from the agency’s previous estimate of 16.81 billion bushels, but still the most corn ever produced by U.S. farmers in a marketing year by nearly 1.5 billion bushels.”
“Corn yields were pegged at 186 bushels an acre, down from 186.7 bushels an acre in the USDA’s September report but also still a record high, beating the previous record of 179.3 bushels an acre,” Maltais reported. “Soybeans maintained their outlook for record-large yields in 2025/2026. The USDA said that it expects this year’s yield to be 53 bushels an acre, slightly lower than previously forecast by the agency but well up from the record of 51.9 bushels an acre set in 2016. Production was pegged at 4.25 billion bushels.”
Source: Agriculture.com
