By Ryan Hanrahan
Bloomberg’s Hallie Gu and Chris Anstey reported that “China is on pace to meet its pledge to buy 12 million tons of US soybeans by the end of February, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday, appearing to extend an earlier deadline for Beijing’s purchases.”
“The White House said last month that China had agreed to buy the shipments ‘during the last two months of 2025,’” Gu and Anstey reported. “I will say that China is on track to keep every part of the deal, every part of the deal,’ Bessent said during an interview at a New York Times event.”
“Asked about the pace of soy purchases and the time left before the end of the year, he clarified that the target was ‘the end of the season, so I think that’ll be Feb. 28.’ The marketing year for US soybeans runs from September to August,” Gu and Anstey reported. “‘They are in a perfect cadence to complete that goal,’ he said. ‘If I look at the loadings, then their purchase by their central government is well into the correct cadence.’”
More Soybean Shipments to China Loading in December
Reuters’ Karl Plume reported that “shipments of U.S. crops to China are accelerating after a tense tariff war had stalled trade for months, with at least six bulk cargo vessels scheduled to load with soybeans at Gulf Coast terminals through mid-December, according to a shipping schedule seen by Reuters on Tuesday.”
“A seventh U.S. soybean cargo was loaded over the past weekend and is already en route to China, the first such shipment since May. The cargoes would be the first physical deliveries of U.S. soybeans purchased by China following trade talks between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in South Korea in late October,” Plume reported. “The shipments also eased concerns among some traders that the purchases reported last month by Reuters and later confirmed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture could be canceled amid a supply glut in the world’s top soybean importing nation or later switched to rival exporter Brazil, where prices are considerably lower.”
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture has confirmed just 2.25 million tons in Chinese purchases to date for shipment in the 2025/26 marketing year that ends in August 2026,” Plume reported. “Analysts and traders estimate actual sales could be nearer to 3 or 4 million tons as some individual deals were under USDA’s reporting threshold while others were reported to undisclosed destinations.”
“Still, the total purchases remain well short of the volumes seen before the trade war,” Plume reported. “China’s absence from the market had pushed down the price of soybean futures to near five-year lows.”
Economists, Market Doubt China Will Meet Soybean Purchase Pledge
AgWeb’s Tyne Morgan reported that “U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and the White House have said China will live up to its promise to buy 12 MMT of soybeans this year, but ag economists aren’t so sure. Farm Journal’s November Ag Economists’ Monthly Monitor, an anonymous survey, found more than three-quarters (76%) of economists surveyed say China won’t purchase that amount of soybeans this year; 24% of economists think China will.”
Additionally, Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist at StoneX said “says the market is assuming something less than the full 12 MMT pledge,” Morgan reported. “‘I think the market has priced in expectations that maybe they’ll take 8 to 10 million metric tons, and they’ll take it during the marketing year between now and the end of August,’ he says.”
China Soybean Buying Deadline Now February, Bessent Says was originally published by Farmdoc.
