Each week, the Agriculture Department publishes a summary of the latest exports of American crops. Lately, they have all been missing the same thing: The sale of soybeans to China.
Soybeans are the single largest American export to China in terms of value, $12.6 billion worth last year. But as the fall harvest gets underway across the country — 9 percent of planted beans had been harvested as of last week — the country that bought 52 percent of all American soybean exports last year is completely absent.
Sept. 1 was the beginning of the new marketing year for soybeans, the starting point for big sales. Instead, China hasn’t bought any American soybeans since May.
The cause is retaliatory tariffs China has placed on the United States, making the price of American soybeans unattractive for buyers there. Throughout the summer, farmers hoped the Trump administration and China would reach a trade agreement that would drop the tariff on their crops, but so far, no relief was forthcoming.
Through July, China bought 51 percent fewer American soybeans than during the same period last year, according to the Agriculture Department. Other countries, like Egypt, Taiwan and Bangladesh are buying soybeans from the United States, yet, total soybean exports are down 23 percent this year.
Already, the consequences are stacking up for American farmers. On Monday, the Trump administration pledged to support Argentina as it faces economic turmoil. The same day, Argentina suspended its tax on exports of a number of key crops, including soybeans. Shortly thereafter, Chinese companies bought more than one million tons of Argentine soybeans, according to Reuters, increasing the nation’s ability to hold out from buying the crop from America.
The real worry, though, is what is to come.
Soybean prices have been subdued, trading at around $10 a bushel for much of the past year, down from around $13 at the start of 2024.
The sale of soybeans in the spring and summer is always slow, as China and other countries turn to Brazil, which harvests in February and March. Typically, more than half of American soybean exports are sold between October and December. If Chinese buyers continue to stay away, American soybean farmers will be in a rough place.
Continued slow sales of soybeans, and an expected bumper corn crop in a number of states, are raising worries that there will not be enough storage space for grains this fall. There are fears that grain elevators, which buy and store large quantities of crops before selling them, will simply stop accepting soybeans, as they lack confidence they’ll be able to export them.
Politicians from big farming states, like Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, an influential member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, have highlighted the harm to farmers from the trade dispute with China, and called for negotiators to reach a deal.
The Trump administration has noticed. “We care very much about the fact that China has stopped buying our agricultural products,” said Kevin Hassett, the director of the White House National Economic Council, said on Fox Business Network Thursday.
Kevin Draper is a business correspondent covering the agriculture industry. He can be reached at [email protected] or [email protected].
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