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President Donald Trump confirmed he would delay a highly anticipated meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping due to the Iran war. Trump, who was scheduled to visit Beijing March 31 to April 2, said Tuesday that the trip would take place in five or six weeks.
The discussion has been eagerly awaited for affirmation of the prospect for further purchases of U.S. soybeans. A limit-down move by soybeans on Monday was sparked when Trump on Sunday questioned whether he would attend the summit amid dissatisfaction with China’s lack of help in reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Trump on Tuesday tied the decision entirely to the demands of managing the military conflict, saying that China was fine with the delay.
And China may indeed welcome a longer runway to the meeting, analysts told the South China Morning Post. They described the delay as a strategic opportunity to ensure more substantive results, the report said, while also suggesting the shift in timing was unlikely to derail the momentum towards stabilizing ties between the two global powers.
Save the date?: Reports that President Donald Trump has invited farmers and biofuel producers to the White House for a March 27 agricultural event lifted hopes long-delayed fuel blending quotas for 2026 and 2027 will be a boon for demand.
Reuters reported that it remained unclear whether the event, which was first reported by CBS News, would coincide with the release of the blending quotas. The administration last year proposed raising the total amount of renewable fuel required to be blended into the nation’s fuel supply under the Renewable Fuel Standard to around 24.02 billion gallons in 2026 and 24.46 billion gallons in 2027, up from 22.33 billion gallons in 2025.
U.S. refiners are making a last-minute push to convince the administration to scale back those increases, the Reuters report said, arguing that higher blending requirements could add to fuel price pressures when the White House is already worried about sharp rises in energy costs as a result of the war with Iran.
Fed’s fertilizer problem: Federal Reserve policy makers have more than just an oil shock on their hands. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has also created a fertilizer supply shock that has clear-cut implications for food prices and is likely to further chill the outlook for additional rate cuts.
“The real-time inflation data, including real-time grocery prices, now suggest that the energy shock is worth at least 0.4 to 0.6 percent for CPI, and this may accelerate as the fertilizer price hike ripples through,” said Ben Emons, founder of FedWatch Advisors, in a Substack post, referring to the consumer price index.
The closure of the strait, which accounts for 20% of global oil trade, has also trapped around 30% to 35% of global nitrogen exports and nearly half of global sulfur trade, he noted. Urea prices jumped 30% to 44% in less than two weeks, from around $475 to $680 a ton, while U.S. Midwest nitrogen prices jumped more than $100 a ton in days.
When it comes to inflation, “the transmission mechanism is fast and direct because fertilizer is one of the highest variable costs in crop production…The most exposed are “fresh vegetables (nitrogen‑intensive), bread, pasta, cereals (wheat), and cooking oils (soybean oil),” Emons wrote.
Compared to the 2022 fertilizer shock that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the 2026 shock may be worse, Emons said. As others have also noted, 2022 saw Russian fertilizers rerouted rather than taken off the market. Rerouting isn’t an option with the strait closed.
- “The total shock effect could end up at 2.0 to 2.3 percentage points above baseline for food prices, peaking at 4% and then staying in place for 8 months, significantly clouding the Fed’s inflation outlook,” Emons said.
The Federal Reserve’s rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee will conclude its two-day policy meeting Tuesday. It’s fully expected to leave interest rates on hold as it waits to see how the Iran war contributes to inflation pressures and threatens to slow economic growth.
Stuck in the middle: Global edible oil markets are behaving in unpredictable ways, with energy supply disruptions from the Middle East lifting hopes for biodiesel demand, while subdued buying from major importers clouds the price outlook, said industry veteran Dorab Mistry, director of Indian consumer goods company Godrej International, according to Reuters.
- “Right now, edible demand is subdued as prices have jumped. Market has high hopes for biodiesel. It remains to be seen which factor will eventually prevail,” said Mistry, one of the world’s most closely watched edible-oils analysts.
Recession warning: Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, argued in a series of posts on social-media platform X that recession risks for the U.S. economy were on the rise even before the supply shocks caused by the war with Iran. “Recession is once again a serious threat,” he wrote. “Even before the recent disconcerting events in the Middle East, our machine learning based leading economic indicator model put the probability of a recession starting in the next 12 months at an uncomfortably high 49%. Behind the recent jump are primarily the weak labor market numbers, but almost all the economic data have turned soft since the end of last year.”
Siberian cattle emergency: Reuters reported that Russia’s Siberian Novosibirsk region has declared a state of emergency to tackle a cattle disease outbreak after weeks of forced removals for culling triggered protests by small farmers who say the measures threatened their livelihoods.The report said state news agency TASS quoted the region’s agriculture minister, Andrei Shindelov, as saying the emergency would allow “for effective coordination of actions and the containment of the movement of animals and animal products.” Officials said they had identified five outbreaks of pasteurellosis--a severe bacterial pneumonia--and 42 cases rabies in the region from where farm animals were being removed. Media reports and social media posts showed thousands of cows and other cattle being burned to contain the diseases, with villagers confronting police and officials to resist seizure of their cattle, the report said.
High-protein mac ‘n’ cheese: Macaroni and cheese is the latest popular food to get a high-protein makeover. Kraft Heinz in April plans to roll out PowerMac, a protein-focused boxed version of the dish, according to news reports. It’s made with pea protein. One serving contains 17 grams of protein, according to USA Today. The report noted the protein craze has seen numerous food brands and restaurant chains roll out bulked-up products, including Starbucks’ introduction last year of new protein lattes and protein cold foams and Subway’s Protein Pockets, while Chipotle rang in the new year with the introduction of a four-ounce cup of meat – either adobo chicken or steak.
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