China, which imported $16.3b of US soybeans in 2024, has stopped buying

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 – US$12.6 billion (S$16.3 billion) in 2024. But as the fall harvest gets under way across the country – 9 per cent of planted beans had been harvested as of last week – the country that bought 52 per cent of all US soybean exports in 2024 is completely absent.

Sept 1 was the beginning of the new marketing year for soybeans, the starting point for big sales. Instead,

China has not bought any American soybeans

since May.

The cause is retaliatory tariffs China has placed on the United States, making the price of US 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.

Through July, China bought 51 per cent fewer US soybeans than during the same period in 2024, according to the Agriculture Department. Other markets, like Egypt, Taiwan and Bangladesh, are buying soybeans from the US. Yet, total soybean exports are down 23 per cent in 2025.

Already, the consequences are stacking up for American farmers. On Sept 22, 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 a million tonnes of Argentine soybeans, according to Reuters, increasing the nation’s ability to hold out from buying the crop from the US.

The real worry, though, is what is to come.

Soybean prices have been subdued, trading around US$10 a bushel for much of the past year, down from around US$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 US soybean exports are sold between October and December. If Chinese buyers continue to stay away, American 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 will be able to export them.

Politicians from big farming states, including 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,” Mr Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said on Sept 25 on Fox Business Network.

On Sept 25, President Donald Trump said he would like some of the money raised from tariffs to go to farmers.

Ms Brooke Rollins, the agriculture secretary, said on Sept 25 that the government was not ready to announce a relief plan for crop farmers.

She added that the US would develop more international markets for its crops through trade deals. Farmers need to stop relying “on a country that isn’t aligned with our values” as a major purchaser, she said, referring to China.

But she admitted that for farmers, Mr Trump’s trade negotiations were “bumpy and uncertain and unconventional in American history”. NYTIMES