One day before Trump sat down with Chinese President Xi Jinping last month at the G-20 gathering in Osaka, Japan, the Agriculture Department announced that China had bought 544,000 metric tons of U.S. soybeans — its largest purchase since March.
But no new sales have been announced since, despite Trump’s promise that China would buy large amounts of agricultural goods from U.S. farmers “almost immediately” as the two sides relaunched trade negotiations. There’s also no word on whether Trump has presented Chinese officials with a list of goods the White House would like Beijing to buy, as the president said he would, our Pro Trade friends tell MA.
Ag exports to China have plummeted since the trade war began last year, with some sectors hit harder than others. U.S. soybean growers, for example, have sold less than 7 million metric tons to China during the current marketing year (which began Oct. 1) through May, compared with nearly 25 million metric tons by the same point last year, USDA said last week in its monthly update of ag trade data.
[To read the original article, click here.]