US says China to buy 87 million tons of soybeans through 2028

Erin Ailworth, Gerson Freitas Jr. and Ilena Peng, Bloomberg News on Oct 30, 2025

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The U.S. said China has agreed to buy millions of tons of soybeans through 2028, providing some relief to U.S. farmers who have anxiously awaited the resumption of exports to the Asian nation.

China has agreed to buy at least 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans this season, and a minimum of 25 million tons annually over the next three years, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a post on X. She added that China would also remove “unwarranted tariffs” on most U.S. agriculture including soybeans.

The details confirmed earlier comments from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Fox Business, which caused soybean futures to erase losses of as much as 2.2%. Futures were up 1.2% at $11.0725 a bushel as of 12:23 p.m. in Chicago.

President Donald Trump said earlier that China will purchase “tremendous” amounts of American soybeans, following a meeting to hammer out a wide-ranging trade deal with his counterpart Xi Jinping. He said China will start buying immediately, but didn’t provide any additional details.

The president later wrote in a social media post that “farmers should immediately go out and buy more land and larger tractors.”

The details of China’s trade commitments came as welcome news to farmers — a key voting bloc for Trump and the Republican Party — who have been grappling with overflowing silos, while profits have been squeezed by higher input costs and falling prices.

“I don’t think I can stress enough how important this is to farmers because we’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting, and this is a glimmer of hope — so don’t dash my hopes again,” said Iowa farmer Pam Johnson. She recalls living through the farm crisis in the ’80s, when parents advised their kids to get out of the industry for lack of opportunity.

Beijing had shunned U.S. beans so far this export season, using the commodity as a bargaining chip in its trade war with Washington. The agreement paves the way for the reopening of a trade that was worth more than $12 billion last year. Soybeans are the U.S.’s biggest agricultural export and China has been the top destination.

“This is a meaningful step forward to reestablishing a stable, long-term trading relationship that delivers results for farm families and future generations,” Caleb Ragland, president of the American Soybean Association, said in a statement.

Still, while the agreement offers some comfort to farmers, it also makes clear the limitations of U.S. exports to China.

A commitment of 12 million tons for the current season is a “fairly sizable reduction from a historical standpoint,” said Brian Grete, a senior grain and livestock analyst at Commstock. In the longer term, purchases of 25 million tons a year would be “basically getting back to normal,” he added.

Last year, the U.S. exported about 27 million tons to China, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. The commitment would be lower than the outcome of the trade war during Trump’s first term — after the so-called Phase One agreement in 2020, shipments to China rebounded to 34.2 million.

China, the world’s largest buyer of the oilseed mostly used to make pig and chicken feed, has drastically reduced its reliance on U.S. crop supplies since Trump’s first trade war, leaning more on top producer Brazil to meet its needs. At the same time, China’s appetite for U.S. soybeans may be tempered as the world’s second-largest economy struggles to regain growth momentum, limiting demand for animal feed and food.

The ASA noted that the commitments this time around are framed as minimums, and expressed hopes for growth in purchases beyond those levels.

Nebraska farmer Andrew Philips said he was cautiously optimistic. He was heartened by a recent rally in soybean prices on increased expectations for a trade deal. “Still a ways away from some profitability numbers, but it’s a lot better than where it was,” he said.

April Hemmes, a grower in Iowa, said her phone has been pinging with texts as she chats with others about the details of the deal. She said the commitments wouldn’t prompt her to go out and buy land and tractors.

“Our commodity prices haven’t kept up with the inflation of our inputs,” she said. “That’s the real battle we’re looking at here.”

(With assistance from Skylar Woodhouse.)