By Ryan Hanrahan
The New York Times Sui-Lee Wee reported that “the White House announced in May that China would buy at least $17 billion a year of U.S. farm goods through 2028, with the target prorated for 2026. Soybeans were not included: China had already vowed separately to step up purchases from American farmers.”
“Yet in the first seven months of 2026, China bought only $3.9 billion of U.S. agricultural products, excluding soybeans, according to the most recent Agriculture Department data,” Sui-Lee Wee reported. “The amount was only slightly more than during the same period last year, when sales were at a six-year low as the two countries imposed tit-for-tat tariffs on each other.“
“The sluggish pace of China’s purchases could become a point of contention when Mr. Trump and Mr. Xi meet again at a summit this week,” Sui-Lee Wee reported. “During his first term, Mr. Trump accused Beijing of ‘letting us down’ by reneging on pledges to buy American agricultural products and called its failure to buy soybeans an ‘economically hostile’ act.
Bloomberg’s Hallie Gu and Erin Ailworth reported that “to fulfill the $17 billion commitment, China would have to raise US purchases at the expense of its hard-won strategy of diversification, cutting supplies from countries like Canada, Argentina, Brazil and Australia.“
“The broader hope is that Trump and Xi can cement their accommodation on agriculture, without getting derailed by thornier issues like Taiwan or artificial intelligence,” Gu and Ailworth reported. “‘As we look back over the last several years, we’ve had inconsistencies,’ (said Tim Lust, chief executive officer of the National Sorghum Producers Association). ‘It’s been really good at times, and it’s been really slow at times. So that’s one of the things that we’re hopeful out of this, that we get that more consistent trade volume.'”
Source : illinois.edu