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Is that all there is?
High hopes for progress on agricultural trade during Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s summit meeting this week with President Donald Trump have yet to be met. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday said the U.S. and China had extended the trade truce agreed in South Korea last year by two months to Jan. 10, short of expectations for a longer extension. News reports quoted administration officials portraying the shorter extension as an effort to nudge China to pick up the pace on purchases of non-soybean agricultural goods. The Trump administration said that China had agreed to buy $17 billion a year of such goods on top of a purported commitment to buy 25 million metric tons of soybeans a year in 2026, 2027 and 2028.
While China is seen as past the halfway point on its soybean purchase commitment, its tally on other goods stands at just around $4 billion, disappointing traders who have been expecting more activity from China on wheat, corn and cotton. Agricultural groups have pressed the administration for concrete action on trade during the summit, including the elimination of China’s 10% tariff on U.S. soybean imports (related item below).
In a statement, the American Soybean Association welcomed the truce extension and said it hoped that the discussions will build on that progress and deliver additional positive developments for U.S. soybean farmers and agricultural trade.
“Soybean farmers want to see this momentum continue with strong purchases of U.S. soy and a lasting trade partnership with China,” said ASA President and Ohio soybean farmer Scott Metzger.
Meanwhile, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said that if the short truce extension is the sole outcome of the meeting, “then all I can say is Trump is making a great big mistake by having a showcase of a communist autocrat,” Agri-Pulse reported.
Trump welcomed Xi on the tarmac of Joint Base Andrews in a pomp-filled ceremony Wednesday. Xi and Trump met in the Oval Office for several hours Thursday morning and Xi will return to the White House Thursday night for a state dinner. Xi is slated to meet again with Trump Friday before departing.
The South China Morning Post reported that, according to a statement published by state news agency Xinhua, Trump and Xi traded views on global and regional issues during their closed-door talks, including the Middle East crisis, the Ukraine war and the Korean peninsula.
Trump told reporters that he and Xi had “a great meeting” on Thursday morning. Earlier, he said the U.S. and China teams “have been working to encourage a more balanced trading relationship, including the new market access for American farmers and ranchers.”
Market recap: The Trump-Xi summit did little for the grain market bulls. Meal underpinned the soy complex as processors remain short on supply amid wet weather and harvest delays in the western Corn Belt. Soybean futures faced pressure from weak USDA weekly export sales, which fell well below expectations. Wheat contracts closed down across the board amid talk of potential Russia-Ukraine peace efforts and improved moisture for planting in the Plains. Meanwhile, cotton managed small gains as traders monitored developments from the Trump-Xi summit in Washington.
Technical selling pushed lean hog futures down ahead of the upcoming Hogs & Pigs report, while live and feeder cattle declined alongside weaker cash cattle and lower midday boxed beef prices.
- December corn fell fell 1 ½ cents to $5.27 1/2
- November soybeans lost ½ cent to $13.17 ½.
- December soybean meal rose $1.80 to $372.40
- December soybean oil fell 32 points to 66.93 cents
- December SRW fell 1 ½ cents to $7.07
- December HRW declined 4 ¾ cents to $7.67
- December spring wheat dropped 9.5 cents to $7.1925.
- December cotton futures rose 42 points to 83.31 cents
- October live cattle fell $1.85 to $219.075, while November feeder cattle lost $1.425 to $328.075.
Hog herd shrinks: USDA’s quarter Hogs & Pigs Report released Thursday afternoon put the U.S. inventory at 74.3 million head, down 2% from the same time last year. Breeding inventory was down 1% year over year, while market-hog inventory was down 2%. Analysts surveyed by Reuters had expected 0.8% declines across the board. Producers intend to have 2.85 million sows farrow during the September-November 2026 quarter, down 2% from the actual farrowings during the same period one year earlier, and down 2% from the same period two years earlier, USDA said. Intended farrowings for December 2026-February 2027, at 2.80 million sows, are up 2% from the same period one year earlier, but down 1% from the same period two years earlier.
China shuns Brazil beans: Chinese soybean imports from Brazil have slowed to a trickle due to high prices that have squeezed crush margins, Bloomberg reported, raising the risk of a supply crunch. The report said commercial purchases of Brazilian soybeans totaled fewer than five cargoes over the last two weeks, down from an average of around 20 in August. Buyers were awaiting the outcome of the bilateral summit meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump, Bloomberg reported, noting that private processors in China have relied heavily on Brazilian beans after U.S.-China trade tensions escalated in 2025. A removal of a 10% tariff on U.S. soybeans would make supplies more attractive to China’s commercial crushers.
- “In 2025, China had no alternative and kept buying from Brazil through the end of the year,” AgResource Brasil’s Raphael Mandarino told Bloomberg.
Wetter weather for cotton: It’s been an excessively hot and chronically dry summer for cotton production areas from eastern New Mexico and West Texas into Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle and southwestern Kansas, noted Drew Lerner of World Weather Inc. . “Now, the forecast is beginning to change and for the coming week there is a good potential that rain will fall more abundantly and frequently,” he said in a report Thursdya afternoon. “The moisture will be good in bolstering soil moisture for winter crops and grazing conditions, but not so welcome for cotton fiber quality. Some discoloring is possible and there is some growing concern about Hurricane Polo and its remnants possibly bringing excessive rain to a part of the region.”
Official grain emergency: Russia’s Krasnodar region, a major grain producing and export hub, on the Black and Azov seas, declared a regional emergency-response regime following attacks by Ukraine that disrupted ports and shipping, Bloomberg reported. It comes as the region expects a 13.4 million metric ton crop, up 17% year over year.
- “Russia’s grain export crisis is now officially an emergency,” wrote Andrey Sizov, CEO of SovEcon, in an X post.
“The emergency is backdated to August 12, potentially paving the way for compensation and other support for farmers,” he noted. “Not a new disruption. Just official recognition of how bad things have become.”
Imports don’t bring beef price relief: An American Farm Bureau Federation analysis found that the Trump administration’s August decision to expand tariff-rate quotas on lean beef trimmings failed to lower retail ground beef prices for consumers while putting U.S. ranchers under strain. The analysis tracked daily prices of 80% lean ground beef at 41 grocery stores in 22 states starting Sept. 2, the day after the proclamation went into effect.
- “Across our sample, the average price of ground beef barely moved, going from $7.29 a pound on Sept. 2 to $7.13 a pound on Sept. 23 – a reduction of 16 cents or approximately 2%,” wrote AFBF economists Bernt Nelson and Faith Parum in the report. They said the findings show the proclamation expanding the quotas should be rolled back.
In related news,the White House and the office of the U.S. Trade Representative denied a Politico report Wednesday that a small group of White House officials was exploring whether to scale back the decision allowing foreign beef imports.
Wendy’s franchisee files Ch. 11: Meritage Hospitality Group, one of the largest Wendy’s franchisees in the U.S., filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Michigan after a dispute with Wendy’s corporate parent, which sought to terminate its franchise agreements, Fox Business reported. Meritage, which operates 314 locations across 15 states, cited soaring beef costs, declining store traffic and heavy promotional discounting for severe margin pressure. The report said Meritage reported a $31.5 million net loss in 2025. Meritage plans to keep dining rooms open, maintain normal restaurant operations, and continue paying its roughly 9,000 employees through the court-supervised restructuring process, the report said. Court records show Meritage had approximately $725.9 million in assets and $651.2 million in total liabilities as of summer 2026.