American farmers push to boost soybean sales in China as Trump’s trade war rumbles on

After President Donald Trump’s recent meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, there is hope for U.S. farmers that the soybean business may be on the way back. At the China International Import Expo last week, Illinois soybean farmer Scott Gaffner said he came to Shanghai to save his China business. He said the Gaffner Family Farm typically sells 40% of its annual soybean exports to China, but as he arrived in Shanghai, that number this year was zero. As part of the trade arrangement discussed between Trump and Xi in the South Korean port city of Busan at the end of October, China lifted retaliatory tariffs on some agricultural products. But it has maintained a 13% tariff on U.S. soybeans. The White House said China will buy 12 million metric tons of soybeans by the end of this year and 25 million for each of the next three years. That’s still down from the nearly 27 million metric tons China bought in 2024. The country has yet to confirm the Trump administration’s numbers. “We’d ...