China has halted its purchases of soybeans from the United States in recent months, a move seen as a calculated effort to pressure the Trump administration amid intensifying trade tensions.
Beijing’s suspension marks a sharp decline in the US-China agricultural trade relationships and has rattled the heart of America’s farming community. The freeze comes as both sides prepare for a potential meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month. As of now, the Trump-Xi meeting plans have not been finalized.
“The soybean farmers of our country are being hurt because China is, for ‘negotiating’ reasons only, not buying,” Trump said in a social media post on October 1. “We’ve made so much money on tariffs that we are going to take a small portion of that and help our farmers.”
For decades, the soybean trade has been a cornerstone of Sino-US agricultural cooperation. As part of its 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization, China removed import quotas and imposed a uniform 3% tariff, resulting in a surge in US soybean imports.
In 2017, China imported 32.58 million tons of US soybeans, but the volume fell to 16.64 million tons in 2018 due to the Trump administration’s trade war, according to China Customs. Imports later stabilized at around 20 million tons per year until the 2022 pandemic disrupted supplies and pushed China to diversify its sourcing to Brazil and Argentina.
Last year, the US shipped 985 million bushels of soybeans to China, accounting for 51% of the country’s total soybean exports. By contrast, from January to August 2025, exports of US soybeans to China fell to just 218 million bushels with no deliveries recorded in June, July and August.
Brazil, the world’s largest producer, is expected to harvest 169 million metric tons in the 2024/25 crop year, accounting for approximately 40% of global output. The US crop of 119 million tonnes accounts for 28%, meaning the two countries together supply 68% of the world’s soybeans.
A columnist writing under the pseudonym “Old Farmer” for Guancha.cn offered a stark critique of the trade standoff.
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