China has fulfilled its initial commitment to buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans from the U.S., but it's not clear if the trade agreement announced in October can withstand President Donald Trump's ever-shifting trade policy as American farmers are still dealing with high production costs.
Earlier this month, Trump said he would impose 25% tariffs on any country that buys from Iran, which would include China. Then last weekend he threatened to impose 10% tariffs on eight of America's closest allies in Europe if they continue to oppose his efforts to acquire Greenland.
So the administration's trade policy continues to change quickly, and Iowa State University agricultural economist Chad Hart said that could undermine the trade agreement with China and jeopardize the commitment by the world's largest soybean buyer to purchase 25 million metric tons of American soybeans in each of the next three years.
“Those new tariffs — what does that mean for this agreement? Does it throw it out? Is it still binding? That’s sort of the game here now," Hart said.
Beijing paused any purchase of U.S. soybeans last summer during its trade war with Washington but agreed to resume buying from American soybean farmers after Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping met in South Korea and agreed to a truce.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the purchasing milestone China has met in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday from the sidelines of a major economic forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Bessent met with his Chinese counterpart, Vice President He Lifeng. Bessent said China remains committed.
“He told me that just this week they completed their soybean purchases, and we’re looking forward to next year’s 25 million tons,” Bessent said. “They did everything they said they were going to do.”
Last fall, preliminary data from the Department of Agriculture cast doubts on whether China would live up to the agreement because it was slow to begin purchasing American soybeans and there is a lag before the purchases show up in the official numbers.
On Tuesday, the USDA data showed that China had bought more than 8 million tons of U.S. soybeans by Jan. 8, and its daily reports indicated that China placed several more orders since then, ranging from 132,000 tons to more than 300,000 tons.
China has shifted much of its soybean purchases over to Brazil and Argentina in recent years to diversify its sources and find the cheapest deals. Last year, Brazilian beans accounted for more than 70% of China’s imports, while the U.S. share was down to 21%, World Bank data shows.
Trump is planning to send roughly $12 billion in aid to U.S. farmers to help them withstand the trade war, but farmers say the aid won’t solve all their problems as they continue to deal with the soaring costs of fertilizer, seeds and labor that make it hard to turn a profit right now. Soybean farmers will get $30.88 per acre while corn farmers will receive $44.36 per acre. Another crop hit hard when China stopped buying was sorghum, and those farmers will get $48.11 per acre. The amounts are based on a USDA formula on the cost of production.
That and uncertainty about trade markets and how much farmers will receive for their crops has even some of the most optimistic farmers worried, said Cory Walters, who is an associate professor in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Department of Agricultural Economics. Soybean prices jumped up above $11.50 per bushel after the agreement was announced, but the price has since fallen to about $10.56 per bushel on Tuesday. So prices are close to where they were a year ago and aren’t high enough to cover most farmers’ costs.
“Everything is changing -- the land rental market, the fertilizer market, the seed market and it’s all pinching the farmer when they go to do their cash flows. The ability to make a decision is tougher now because of all the uncertainty in the market,” Walters said.
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Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. Associated Press writers Didi Tang and Fatima Hussein contributed from Washington.
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