Remember when a single tweet could move entire commodity markets? Those days feel like they’re back.
Last month, after months of complete silence on the soybean front, Chinese buyers suddenly started snapping up American beans again. For farmers across the Midwest, it felt like the first real breath of fresh air after years underwater. But here’s the thing, the celebration might have been premature.
The Promise vs. The Reality
The numbers are brutally clear.
Under the trade agreement reached earlier this year, China committed to purchasing at least 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans just in the final quarter of 2025. That’s a massive number, roughly equivalent to about one-fifth of America’s typical annual exports to its once-biggest customer.
Yet here we are in early December, and the actual purchases clock in at just 2.85 million metric tons since late October. That’s less than 25% of the promised amount with only weeks left in the year.
I’ve covered agricultural markets for years, and I’ve rarely seen such a stark gap between diplomatic promises and commercial reality. It’s like signing a contract to buy a house and then only paying the down payment while moving in anyway.
Why Did China Stop Buying in the First Place?
Let’s rewind a bit.
For decades, China was the undisputed king of soybean imports, sucking up more than 60% of all soybeans that left American ports. Our farmers built entire business models around this relationship. Then came the trade war, tariffs flying both directions, and suddenly Chinese buyers vanished practically overnight.
Brazil happily filled the void. Their soybean production exploded, new crushing plants sprang up like mushrooms, and they haven’t looked back since. Today, Brazil supplies about 80% of China’s soybean needs. That’s a market share shift of historic proportions that happened in less than five years.
When your biggest customer walks away, it doesn’t matter how good your product is. You’re left holding the bag, literally millions of bushels of it.
— Midwestern grain elevator manager, 2024
The New Agreement: Genuine Thaw or Temporary Truce?
The recent trade deal was supposed to change all that.
Both sides sat down, hammered out new terms, and emerged with smiles and handshakes. China would buy massive quantities of American agricultural products, starting immediately. The administration declared victory. Farmers allowed themselves to hope.
But anyone who’s watched this relationship over the years knows something important: China plays the long game. They don’t make agricultural purchasing decisions based on diplomatic photo ops. They buy when prices are right, when they actually need the beans, and when it serves their broader strategic interests.
Right now, several factors are working against big U.S. purchases:
- Brazil just had another bumper crop
- Global soybean prices have been falling
- China’s domestic hog herd (their main protein demand driver) is still recovering slower than expected from African swine fever
- They already bought heavily from South America earlier this year
In other words, they simply might not need our beans as urgently as the agreement assumed.
The $12 Billion Band-Aid
This brings us to the latest development that has farmers simultaneously grateful and frustrated.
The administration just announced another $12 billion in direct aid to farmers affected by trade disruptions. The money is supposed to come from tariff revenue, which has a certain poetic justice to it, your trade war pays for the damage from your trade war.
But here’s what farmers are really saying in private: They don’t want another government check. They want customers. They want markets. They want the ability to plan their planting seasons without wondering if Washington and Beijing are going to have another spat that tanks their prices.
I’ve talked to fourth-generation farmers who are now seriously considering switching to corn or even letting ground go fallow because they can’t trust the soybean market anymore. That’s not just an economic decision. That’s a cultural shift happening in America’s heartland.
Can China Still Hit the Target?
Some administration officials are still optimistic.
They point out that Chinese purchases often come in waves, that state-owned enterprises might be holding back until the last minute, that we should wait until February before declaring the deal dead. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently claimed China remains “on track” to meet broader purchasing commitments.
Maybe. Agricultural trade has always had its seasonal rhythms. But when I look at the current pace, it’s hard to see how they make up a nine-million-ton deficit in just a few weeks. That’s like trying to drink a swimming pool through a straw.
| Period | Promised Purchases | Actual Purchases | Shortfall |
| Q4 2025 | 12 million tons | 2.85 million tons | 9.15 million tons |
| 2025-2027 (total) | 25+ million tons | On pace for ~8-10M | Massive |
What Happens Next?
This is where things get really interesting.
If China continues buying at the current slow pace, we face a fundamental question: What are the consequences when one side doesn’t meet a trade agreement’s specific commitments? The original Phase One deal had enforcement mechanisms, but they’ve never really been tested.
Does the U.S. respond with new tariffs? Does it accept partial compliance as good enough? Does it negotiate new terms?
The administration’s approach seems to be threading a needle, declaring victory while preparing farmers for continued support payments. It’s a pragmatic recognition that trade relationships with China are rarely binary.
Meanwhile, American farmers are doing what they’ve always done, adapting. Some are diversifying into specialty crops. Others are investing in on-farm storage to better time their sales. A few are even learning Portuguese to build direct relationships with Brazilian counterparts, because they’ve learned the hard way that putting all your eggs in one geopolitical basket is dangerous.
The Bigger Picture
Perhaps the most underappreciated aspect of this whole saga is what it reveals about the changing nature of global agricultural trade.
We’re moving into an era where food security is national security. Countries aren’t just buying commodities anymore; they’re buying resilience. China didn’t just replace U.S. soybeans with Brazilian ones; they invested heavily in Brazilian farmland, port infrastructure, and processing capacity. They’re doing the same in Africa and throughout South America.
The U.S., meanwhile, is spending billions to subsidize farmers while its market share erodes. There’s something profoundly unsustainable about that model over the long term.
I’ve found that the farmers who are thriving right now aren’t the ones waiting for China to come back. They’re the ones who stopped thinking of China as a customer and started thinking of them as a competitor in a global food system that’s becoming more fractured by the day.
The soybean saga continues. China keeps buying, just not nearly enough. Farmers keep farming, supported by government checks they wish they didn’t need. And the global agricultural landscape keeps shifting under everyone’s feet.
In my experience, the only thing certain in agricultural markets is uncertainty. But if there’s one lesson from the past few years, it’s that American farmers are nothing if not resilient. They’ll adapt to whatever comes next, whether that’s a flood of Chinese orders in January or another year of Brazilian dominance.
The fields will still need planting come spring. The question is who they’ll be planting for.
