China has not increased soyabean imports from the USA in line with expectations following the meeting between US president Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping last month, according to US Department of Agriculture (USDA) data reported by AP News.
Published on 14 November after the US government reopened following the longest shutdown in the country’s history, the USDA report showed there had been only two Chinese purchases of US soyabeans totalling 332,000 tonnes since the summit in South Korea, the 15 November report said.
That volume fell below the 12M tonnes that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said China had agreed to purchase by January and nowhere near the 25M tonnes she said Beijing would buy in each of the next three years, AP News wrote.
Although US farmers had been hopeful their biggest customer would resume buying crops, CoBank’s lead economist for grains and oilseed Tanner Ehmke was quoted as saying there was not much incentive for China to buy from the USA as they had built up large stocks from Brazil and other South American countries this year, and ongoing tariffs made US soyabeans more expensive than Brazilian shipments.
Soyabean stocks at Chinese ports reached a record 10.3M tonnes on 7 November, up 3.6M tonnes year-on-year, while crushers held 7.5M tonnes, the highest level since 2017, according to data from Sublime China Information reported by Reuters on 12 November.
“State firms may be waiting for margins to recover before making large-scale purchases,” Johnny Xiang, founder of Beijing-based AgRadar Consulting, was quoted as saying by Reuters.
“Even with tariff waivers, margins remain negative and Brazilian beans are still cheaper.”
Although Beijing had not confirmed any detailed soyabean purchase agreement at the time of the report it said the two sides had reached “consensus” on expanding trade in farm products.
According to Ehmke, China would only commit to buying US soyabeans if the price was competitive.
Trump said his team had spoken with Chinese officials and they had assured the White House they would be purchasing more soyabeans, without offering further details.
At the time of the AP News report, China’s tariff on US soyabeans remained high at about 24%, despite a 10% reduction following the summit.
According to USDA data published on 18 November, private exporters reported sales of 792,000 tonnes of soyabeans for delivery to China during the 2025/2026 marketing year.
China is the world’s largest buyer of soyabeans and bought more than US$12.5bn worth of the nearly US$24.5bn worth of US soyabeans exported last year, according to the AP News report.
However, China halted purchases of US soyabeans this year after Trump imposed tariffs on the country and continued to shift more of their purchases over to South America, the report said.
Even before the trade war, Brazilian soyabeans accounted for more than 70% of China’s imports last year, while the USA’s share fell to 21%, World Bank data showed.
Before the trade agreement, Trump had promised farmers would receive an aid package to help them during the trade war with China, AP News wrote.
However, that was put on hold during the shutdown, and it was now not clear if the administration would offer farmers aid as Trump had in his first administration, the report said.
