Soybean Exports Fall as China Demand Weakens

Sep 01, 2025
By Farms.com

USDA lowers 2025 forecast but China demand weak

The United States Department of Agriculture has updated its quarterly trade outlook, lowering the projected farm trade deficit for fiscal year 2025 to $47 billion, down from $49.5 billion in June. The deficit is expected to narrow further to $41.5 billion in 2026, though still above 2024’s $32 billion.

USDA raised its 2025 export forecast from $170.5 billion to $173 billion but expects exports to fall to $169 billion in 2026. Imports are also projected to decline, from $220 billion this year to $210.5 billion in 2026. However, soybean exports are expected to drop sharply from $21.5 billion in 2025 to $18.3 billion in 2026, continuing a decline from $24.2 billion in 2024.

Soybean growers face particular strain due to trade tensions with China. USDA projects U.S. agricultural exports to China will fall from $17 billion in 2025 to just $9 billion in 2026 — the lowest since 2007. China, once the top U.S. market, is expected to drop behind the European Union, Japan, and South Korea, while Brazil strengthens its role as China’s primary supplier.

The first half of 2025 already saw a record $28.6 billion deficit, marking a sharp reversal after decades of U.S. agricultural surpluses. Experts note that while imports and exports often involve different products — such as the U.S. exporting bulk crops like corn and soybeans while importing fruits and vegetables — the trend reflects long-term challenges.

Former USDA chief economist Joe Glauber explained that the deficit may not be as troubling as it seems, since imports and exports serve different needs. Still, the numbers highlight the pressure facing U.S. farmers in global markets.

Photo Credit: istock-oticki

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”