China buys between 8 and 10 U.S. soybean cargoes through state-owned firms
Key Facts
Chinese state-owned trading companies bought between 8 and 10 cargoes of U.S. soybeans, Reuters reported on October 14, 2026, citing trade sources. These are the first purchases since U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at a summit in Washington in September. Each Panamax cargo carries about 65,000 metric tons, according to the sources who spoke to the agency. The buyers paid premiums ranging from $3.10 to $3.20 per bushel over the January soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade, according to a trader cited by Reuters. The contracts bring state-owned firms back to the market, while tariffs continue to hamper Chinese commercial buyers' access to U.S. supplies.
A larger wave of buying by cargo count preceded the summit, with Reuters reporting on September 10 that China had bought between 14 and 15 cargoes that week. Traders who spoke to the agency estimated those purchases at about one million metric tons of U.S. soybeans. Those contracts were signed before Xi's visit, while the latest round followed the presidential meeting. China's purchases of U.S. soybeans before the latest deals totaled about 13.7 million tons, according to Reuters. That compares with a Chinese buying target of 25 million tons for the 2026/27 marketing year, announced by the White House and cited by the agency in its report on the new contracts.
The White House had announced that understandings reached at the September summit included recommendations to grant more favorable tariff treatment to non-sensitive goods worth $30 billion in each direction. The understandings also included establishing a working group to address barriers to agricultural market access, according to a White House statement. But the list of proposed tariff cuts following the summit excluded soybeans, according to Reuters, dampening expectations that private crushers would resume buying additional U.S. supplies. In a report dated September 30, the agency said U.S. soybeans still faced an additional Chinese tariff of 10%. The tariff made purchases uneconomical for commercial buyers, according to the same report.
Purchases resumed after a pause lasting weeks, partly linked to weak demand during China's National Day holiday, according to trade sources who spoke to Reuters. China's soybean imports in September totaled 11.88 million tons, according to Chinese customs data cited by the agency. Imports fell 7.7% from the same month a year earlier. In the domestic market, Sinograin offered 518,000 tons of imported soybeans at an auction on the Tuesday before the Reuters report was published. The company sold 40.5% of the volume offered, according to Mysteel data cited by the agency, as state-owned firms resumed contracting for U.S. cargoes.
On the supply side, the U.S. Department of Agriculture raised its forecast for U.S. soybean production in the 2026/27 season to 4.56 billion bushels in its October report. The estimate rose by 27 million bushels from the previous month's forecast, with the department attributing the revision to higher yields. It also raised its forecast for U.S. soybean ending stocks to 315 million bushels. The stocks estimate increased by 5 million bushels from the September report. The upward revision extended to global ending stocks, which the department estimated at about 124.3 million tons, up 0.3 million tons from the previous month's estimate.
The contracted U.S. volumes are scheduled for shipment from December onward, according to traders who spoke to Reuters. Commercial firms' purchases from overseas remain dependent on an improvement in crushing margins, according to Johnny Xiang, founder of Beijing-based consultancy AgRadar. Xiang told the agency in its September 30 report: "Unless margins recover, commercial buyers are unlikely to book additional cargoes from overseas." The shipment date falls after the next release of the USDA's World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report. The department set November 10 as the publication date for that report.