21 October 2026, Beijing: Chinese state-owned trading firms booked another 10 to 13 cargoes of US soybeans in the past several days, extending a buying streak that has now pushed China’s cumulative purchases for the 2026-27 marketing year to an estimated 15 million tonnes, according to Reuters reporting carried this week by US agricultural trade outlets.
The latest cargoes, scheduled for shipment between December and March, add to a steady pace of weekly purchases that has continued since Chinese buyers resumed large-scale US soybean purchases following the September meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping in Washington. State-owned firms are reported to have booked a similar volume, roughly 8 to 13 cargoes, in the prior week as well, underlining that the buying has settled into a sustained weekly pattern rather than a single burst tied to the summit itself.
Progress Against a 25-Million-Tonne Target
The purchases are being measured against a target the White House has said China committed to as part of a broader trade arrangement: 25 million tonnes of US soybeans for the 2026-27 marketing year, part of a wider pledge covering at least $17 billion in annual US farm goods purchases that the administration says is intended to run through 2028. At an estimated 15 million tonnes booked so far, China has moved well past the halfway mark toward that annual figure, a notable acceleration from where the running total stood in mid-October, when it was closer to 13 to 14 million tonnes.
The steady cadence of purchases matters because it has come despite a pause in Chinese buying during the country’s early-October National Day holiday, and despite earlier uncertainty over whether proposed tariff reductions agreed around the Trump-Xi summit would specifically cover soybeans; they did not, yet buying has continued regardless, suggesting Chinese state buyers are treating the purchase commitment as a standing obligation rather than one contingent on further tariff concessions. US export data for September showed Chinese soybean imports from the United States rebounding sharply from essentially zero shipments in the same month a year earlier, when the two countries’ trade relationship had deteriorated to the point of a near-total halt in US soybean purchases.
Brazil and Argentina Are Watching the Pace Closely
For US farmers and grain handlers, the sustained buying is easing pressure on what had been large unsold stocks sitting with elevators and processors following a bumper harvest. For competing exporters in South America, the pattern is being watched closely for what it signals about market share heading into 2027. Brazil and Argentina have both gained ground in Chinese soybean import volumes over the past two marketing years as the trade dispute between Washington and Beijing disrupted the traditional flow of US beans to China; a sustained return of Chinese demand to US origin, continuing at the current weekly pace, raises the question of whether that market share gain holds once Brazil’s next harvest, due to begin arriving in early 2027, comes onto the export market needing buyers of its own.
Soybean futures have responded only modestly to the continued buying, with analysts cautioning that heavy harvest-time supply in the United States is likely to cap further price gains even as the demand news is constructive. US elevators and processors, which had been sitting on large unsold stockpiles earlier in the harvest, are seeing some of that overhang worked through as the export program gathers pace.
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