Disruptions to international trade and uncertain demand for U.S. commodities has been a defining story for markets this year. The agricultural trade balance is one measure of trade flows that implies not as much has been disrupted as we might think in terms of net effects.
The metric, which tracks the value of the total flow of imports and exports for goods in the sector, garnered attention in 2025 as a reason for revisiting trade deals with foreign countries and promote purchasing of U.S. goods. Data for this year, through September, shows the trade balance is currently at -$38.6 billion according to the USDA-FAS. Negative values represent conditions when higher values of agricultural goods are entering the U.S. as imports than leaving as exports.
While the total number may not be seem to show much of a change in the current trend, both the commodities that make up the metric and the potential for the trend of widening trade deficits have changed quite a bit in 2025.
How have individual commodities been impacted?
Total exports of agricultural goods compared to last year at this time are down less than 1% by value to $136.5 billion, but up 6% by quantity to 164 MMT. Digging in to the commodity-level data shows corn saw the largest overall increase in value of exports compared to last year, with dairy products and soybean oil following closely behind. Corn exports have performed on near-record pace so far this year and are likely not a surprise to top this list.
Crops aside from corn have not fared quite as well. Coarse grains excluding corn were the commodity group hit second hardest in export declines, as China also abstained from purchasing those grains during the trade war. Unsurprisingly, the commodity with the largest declines in the value of exports was soybeans. The crop is behind $2.28 billion dollars when compared to 2024’s export values.
On the imports side, the value of all imported goods was up 3% to 201.6 billion, while quantities were down 1% to 59.5 MMT when compared to last year through September. The categories seeing the largest uptick in import values are coffee, beef, and cocoa. With reciprocal tariffs being a constantly shifting landscape, there has been some conjecture as to whether imports were rushed in early this year in an attempt to frontload inventory ahead of the duties.
It should also be noted that each of these commodities saw sharp increases in value this year due to lower supplies. For beef, that’s due in large part to a historically small U.S. herd, whereas coffee and cocoa have seen years of poor harvests around the globe. The most extreme decrease in a category of imports was biodiesel, which has declined 97% from last year’s value due to changes in tax structure eliminating incentives for foreign biofuels.
Will the ag trade deficit shrink in 2025?
$38.6 billion is a sizable deficit, and $4.1 billion lower than the 10 year average for the year through September. Despite currently trailing lower than the previous year, there is some optimism that the trade balance could narrow considerably over the last quarter of the year. The trade balance usually peaks for the U.S. in the final quarter of the year after most major crop harvests are complete. With corn and wheat showing near-record export paces, the volume of goods shipped seems sufficient to lower the trade deficit by December. However, lower commodity values and poorer than normal soybean shipments could temper the ability of high exports to narrow the deficit.