Pictured is the U.S. Soybean Export Council’s booth at the 4th China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing, China on June 22, 2026.
China News Service | Getty Images
BEIJING—As Brazil steals the bulk of its Chinese soybean purchases from U.S. farmers, the United States is trying to win back buyers by emphasizing the quality of its crops.
“Soybean production in North America and soybean production in South America are very different,” Carlos Salinas, executive director of East Asia for the U.S. Soybean Export Council, said in a presentation Tuesday at the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing.
He compared various weather factors, including 231 millimeters and 72 millimeters of rainfall in the 30 days before harvest, between a city in Brazil and a city in the U.S. state of Illinois.
“It affects the condition of the crop. It affects the quality,” he said.
The half-day event, aimed at “promoting a sustainable and resilient U.S.-China soybean supply chain,” was co-sponsored by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade.
“What we’re really encouraging soybean buyers to do is make sure they’re educated to better understand it,” Jim Sutter, CEO of the U.S. Soybean Export Council, told CNBC on the sidelines of the event, referring specifically to new ways to measure animal feed quality and nutrition.
As trade tensions between the US and China have intensified in recent years, US soybeans have become a bargaining chip. Beijing, the world’s largest importer of soybeans, is also diversifying its procurement sources to Brazil and Argentina to ensure food security.
Ten years ago, the U.S. and Brazil each accounted for about 40% of China’s soybean imports, but Brazil began to take a much larger share in 2018 after the first round of U.S. tariffs on China, according to calculations by CNBC based on Chinese customs data accessed through Wind Information.
According to the data, as of the first five months of 2026, more than 60% of China’s soybean imports will come from Brazil, 23% from the United States and 10% from Argentina.
U.S. soybean exports to China fell 76% last year to $3.1 billion, down from a peak of $17.9 billion in 2022, according to official U.S. statistics. At 7.37 million tons, U.S. soybeans remained the U.S.’s largest agricultural export to China during the past calendar year.
It will take time to convince Chinese buyers to increase their purchases.
Last month, after US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in Beijing, the White House announced that China would purchase at least $17 billion of US agricultural products annually through 2028. The amount will be “in addition to the soybean purchases committed in October 2025.”
After Trump and Xi met in South Korea last fall, the United States announced that China had agreed to buy at least 25 million tons of U.S. soybeans each over the next three years.
Sutter said China has purchased all 12 million tons of U.S. soybeans it agreed to buy in the marketing year ending in August 2026, and nearly all of that has been shipped.
Purchases for the next 25 million tonnes began last week, Sutter said.
On June 17 and 18, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reported that private exporters sold 132,000 tons of soybeans to China in the marketing year ending August 31, 2027, with additional soybeans sold to unknown destinations over two years. Sutter noted that these unknown destinations often turn out to be China.
There are further signs of a gradual recovery.
Jerry Slocum, a Mississippi farmer and director of the National Soybean Board, told CNBC that “in the past week and a half, China has committed to purchase nearly 1 million tons of the crop, which will begin harvesting in September of this year.”
“So we’re seeing an agreement that both presidents have made, and we’re seeing it coming to fruition,” Slocum said. But he doesn’t expect new orders to arrive on Tuesday, saying: “There’s still some uncertainty about that.”
Slocum also spoke at Tuesday’s event, highlighting the five-generation family farm’s crop rotation and other efforts to maintain soil quality.
The U.S. Heartland China Association hosted a delegation to Zhengzhou, Henan province, and Beijing last week for an agricultural roundtable.
“It’s been several weeks since Americans were on the ground here in China to see the agricultural cooperation that used to take place on a much larger scale between China and the United States,” said Darrell Irwin, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut, who participated in the visit.
Agriculture is “not as big of a deal as it was in 2019, when it was down significantly,” he said.
Despite the optimism, U.S. soybeans won’t be flowing into China anytime soon.
Sutter said he expects exports to remain at around 25 million to 30 million tonnes over the next year or two, with the potential to reach 40 million tonnes over the next few years.
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