USDA Projects Ag Trade Deficit Will Fall to $41.5 Billion in 2026

Sep 02, 2025

By Ryan Hanrahan

Agri-Pulse’s Philip Brasher reported that “USDA’s quarterly trade outlook lowered the projected trade deficit for fiscal 2025 to $47 billion from the $49.5 billion estimated in June. The deficit is projected to drop to $41.5 billion for fiscal 2026, which starts Oct. 1, because U.S. ag imports are expected to fall even more than exports. The estimated deficit for FY26 would still be higher than FY24’s $32 billion.”

“USDA raised its estimate for FY25 exports from $170.5 billion to $173 billion, but projected them to decline to $169 billion for FY26. Imports are projected to drop from $220 billion this year to $210.5 billion in FY26,” Brasher reported. “Soybean exports are expected to drop from $21.5 billion in FY25 to $18.3 billion for FY26, down from $24.2 billion in FY24.”

“Soybean growers are being especially hard hit by Trump’s simmering trade war with China; the Chinese have yet to put in an order for this fall’s soybean crop,” Brasher reported. “ERS projects U.S. ag exports to China will drop from $17 billion in FY25 to $9 billion in FY26. As recently as FY24, China imported $25.7 billion worth of U.S. ag commodities.”

Source : illinois.edu

Video: There’s a Whole Barn Buried Under This Field Now

There's old hog barns under that field now. The old hog barn site on the farm has been sitting there for decades, and this is the week it finally came out: concrete pad, burn pile, charred lumber, all of it loaded into a CAT 725C rock truck and buried in a pit we dug back in the timber.

Tork's been waiting his whole life to drive one of these, so he gets the keys to a 50,000 pound rock truck and I ride shotgun. The excavator loads, the dozer clears the timber, the drone shows the whole site from above, and by sundown there's nothing left of the old place but a smooth patch of dirt. It's a weird feeling erasing something that was here before either of us, but the farm has to keep moving.