Will China really buy 12 million tonnes of U.S. soybeans?

There are still plenty of questions swirling around about demand for U.S. soybeans, says an analyst. There was elation when U.S. president Donald Trump’s administration announced on Nov. 1 that China had agreed to buy 12 million tonnes of U.S. soybeans by the end of 2025 and 25 million tonnes annually for the next three years. Why it Matters: Soybean and other oilseed prices could drop if China doesn’t live up to its trade deal with the U.S. However, weeks later there has been no official confirmation of those numbers from China. “They refused to acknowledge the demand numbers that the Trump administration has made public,” Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist with StoneX Financial, said during a recent webinar. He thinks the Trump administration made the numbers public to pressure China to live up to them. “But China is still not showing any indications it plans to do so,” said Suderman. The U.S. Department of Agriculture just did a big data dump about exports to catch up ...