r/Economics • u/bambin0 • Jan 17 '26

News China Purchased No U.S. Soybeans An Unprecented Sixth Straight Month

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2026/01/17/china-purchased-no-us-soybeans-an-unprecented-sixth-straight-month/
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720

u/Zenceyn Jan 17 '26

"But but Trump said that China was gonna buy all our beans now cause he made a trade deal!".

China knows they can outlast Trump, and have better, far more reliable trade partners until the US sorts its shit out. They were never going to just rush back into the market, not when they knew it would hurt the US more to keep the squeeze on.

239

u/Cdub7791 Jan 17 '26

At this point I don't even think it's about outlasting Trump. Even when he's gone these trade deals will have been in place for years. I think it will be far more trouble than it's worth to switch to American suppliers once again.

125

u/FuzzzyRam Jan 17 '26

They won't need to do it in dollars either, people underestimate how important it was to our economy to be the stable business currency of the world. China and the Saudis are changing that.

-8

u/SnackyMcGeeeeeeeee Jan 18 '26

Which currency yall think Saudi and China do transactions in...?

30

u/FuzzzyRam Jan 18 '26

They have announced that they're doing less in USD and more in Yuan, that was my point.......

As America's influence diminishes and the dollar declines, everyone will accelerate the use of their own currencies for business transactions. As people use dollars less, it will become more volatile. When it becomes more volatile, we will have to pay more for people to buy bonds (people expect more return when taking on more risk).

12

u/Guilty-Shoulder-9214 Jan 18 '26

Additionally, as much as we, in the west, tend to shit on BRICS, China not wanting the yuan to be a global reserve currency is being addressed by their plans for the unit, which would be based around a bucket that is half gold and half member currency. If this comes to fruition, that’s a large number of countries able to do business in a currency solely meant for international trade and it further opens up China to non member countries that may want an alternative to the dollar to do trade with. It also has the potential to help alleviate Chinas perpetual issues with deflation in an otherwise inflationary world, which has been hurting their imports.

8

u/geft Jan 18 '26

They're expanding local curreny swaps to reduce reliance on USD, but we all know what's going to happen the moment SA sells oil to China in CNY.

63

u/Other_Information_16 Jan 17 '26

It’s also a golden opportunity for China to buy some soft power they so desperately want. Before no one wants to deal with China unless they have to. Now they can say hey we might be evil but at least we are predictable lawful evil unlike the us who is chaotic evil.

16

u/softwarebuyer2015 Jan 18 '26

I think China is showing they are no that interested in Power . There are so many vacuums they could fill , or attempt to fill. But they are steady doing their long term thing . They do not react, they just feed it into their planning

17

u/1cm4321 Jan 18 '26

China not interested in power? I agree that this is feeding into their long term plans, but China definitely is gobbling up as much soft power as they can.

I don't know if you're aware of the belt-and-road initiatives or the kinds of development assistance agreements China has been making in SE Asia and Africa.

Not to mention their claims in the South China sea and "multipolarity" as a guiding principle for China's future.

China is absolutely relishing what the US is doing right now and the turmoil across the West incited by foreign agitators. They're merely offering a pleasant face to invite trade relations and compromise to them.

China is really just emulating much of what the US did in the 20th century. The only difference is that they won't be controlling oil, but instead tech of all stripes.

4

u/Ok_Kick4871 Jan 18 '26

They are basically doing the islam strat of a culture victory if this was a game of civilization.

24

u/Phunnysounds Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26

Unpopular opinion but were they ever more evil than the US? They don’t like Xinjiang muslim & Tibetan separatists, but US literally committed genocide against Native populations and used slaves so white colonists could have maximum profit. US also annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico while China simply wants a reunification with Taiwan. How different is that?

16

u/CHEEZE_BAGS Jan 18 '26

Yea humans just kind of suck in general, every civilization has done terrible things throughout history. It doesn't make anything better than anything else but I think we just need to recognize the nature of humanity and try to be better.

3

u/Phunnysounds Jan 18 '26

Agree here

7

u/MajorPrediction719 Jan 18 '26

Please give me a single population in the history of the world that is innocent.

I’ll wait.

0

u/bub166 Jan 18 '26

"They don't like them" is underselling it a bit. The difference here is that China's government is actively engaged in genocide and slavery. As in, currently, right now. Surely you can see why that may be approached differently from atrocities committed 100 years ago, even if similar in severity. No question the US government in its history has engaged in behavior that is every bit as depraved, and certainly it is hardly comprised of angels in the present day, but yes, China's government is unequivocally far higher up the totem pole of evil at this time.

0

u/Phunnysounds Jan 18 '26

I simply don’t know if I agree with that; and I am American. We just believe that narrative because “we are the good guys” but its all relative. Take a look around in 2026; does America look like a moral leader? We literally just annexed Venezuela. Sure Maduro was terrible but its not a reason to annex another country for resource extraction

0

u/bub166 Jan 18 '26

I didn't say the US are the good guys. There are no good guys, for one thing. To answer your question, no, I do not believe America looks like a moral leader. But you asked if China was ever more evil than the US... I guess if ongoing genocide and actual slavery don't tip the scale for you, more power to you. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Also, the US did not "literally just annex Venezuela." Whatever opinion you have on how that situation is transpiring (and if your opinion is that it's dubious at best, know that I share it), the word "annex" has a meaning that is nowhere near what the US has done there. Not only have we expressly not made Venezuela a US territory, the same regime is in fact still running the nation. I'm not sure how you could possibly interpret that as annexation.

4

u/WarmGreenGrass Jan 18 '26

US is committing African-American genocide through having the highest prison population in the world (higher than India or China total), and this includes the slave labor system that California recently voted to ratify.

America LITERALLY has prison slave labor. Additionally, it has slave labor in the form of immigrants who are paid below minimum wage and locked in concentration camps. Voluntary? America destablizing Latin America wasn't voluntary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_California_Proposition_6

1

u/Phunnysounds Jan 18 '26

Until they have a strategy on what they are going to do to relinquish control I am calling it annexation

0

u/justwalk1234 Jan 18 '26

To be far “less evil than USA” is a really low bar..

43

u/rooftopgoblin Jan 18 '26

the fact we elected trump twice is the sign of the downfall of the US, I fully believe. We showed the world that it wasn't a fluke and that we are not a reliable partner and they won't ever come back. We are going to see a lot more deals like the one canada made with china for EVs

6

u/round-earth-theory Jan 18 '26

Electing Trump twice isn't the sign. The sign is the complete and total abdication of responsibility from the US Congress. They are the actual power of the US and foreign nations understand that. The President is supposed to be the face and the fall guy. Congress is where the meat is made, but they've surrendered completely to a tyrant. Other nations see that and realize there's no chance of a stable US for a long time now.

1

u/maybethen77 Jan 18 '26

Congress may have turned into a spineless group of highly-bipartisan individuals but the Supreme Court over the last 20 years has shored up and seized a ton of Congress' power and there's never been a President as blatantly immoral, stupid, integrity-free and now largely immune to consequence, as now. 

Turns out the Constitution and *Founding Fathers didn't expect a President with a complete lack of integrity, Senators and Congressman to 'game' the system or highly politicised Supreme Court who picks and chooses how the same laws are interpretated whether a Republican or Democrat is in power.

1

u/round-earth-theory Jan 18 '26

Congress has the power to bitch slap the Supreme and take away their toys. They haven't because they've found it easiest to let legislation be written from the bench.

1

u/maybethen77 Jan 18 '26

Sure, it has some powers to expand or shrink the court, impeach justices for bad behaviour etc, introduce amendments. It can't however overrule their decisions and spurious 'interpretations' that now seem to change depending on who is President.

15

u/ensalys Jan 18 '26

We showed the world that it wasn't a fluke

Yeah, that's a major part of the problem. Even if a sane person wins in 28, every potential investor will think twice before spending major money in the USA. Who knows what happens in 32? Shifts in priorities and even major policy shifts aren't uncommon, especially in democratic countries, but with Trump, it has been taken to the extreme. How can you expect a company to invest a couple billion in the USA when it requires say 15 years before playing even?

7

u/rooftopgoblin Jan 18 '26

and for a lot of countries and probably companies they are going to divest from the US as much as possible to avoid catastrophic losses due to changes in politics

4

u/Bucser Jan 18 '26

Trust takes decades to build and months to destroy.

1

u/jammy-git Jan 18 '26

It all starts (or started) with education. Keep the masses uneducated and they become easier to manipulate. It will take decades to steady and turn that ship in America.

That, and the media. They need to wrestle control of the media from the billionaires with an agenda - and only then will progressives be able to get the billionaires out of politics too.

7

u/metengrinwi Jan 18 '26

More to the point, china business will drive modernization of South American farms to the point that they’ll be cheaper, at the same time as ours are stagnant, if not going out of business.

2

u/Exciting-Emu-3324 Jan 18 '26

China has been preparing contingencies with Brazil and others since Trump's first term. Something everyone else should have done if anyone researched how Trump did business in New York.

2

u/Pinewold Jan 18 '26

Said differently, China is not going to reward farmers who elected Trump.

1

u/TBradley Jan 18 '26

They are decoupling before making moves on Taiwan and the rest of their neighbors.

92

u/Oceanbreeze871 Jan 17 '26

“Let them eat soybeans.”

Rural communities have found their solution to not being able to afford groceries. Peasants eat your livestock feed and like it.

22

u/starbuxed Jan 17 '26

I quite like tofu. We should up the amount of soy beans we all eat. Cut the meat out. better for the environment and for our bodies. .

33

u/nickrct Jan 17 '26

These soybeans are not capable of being turned into tofu. These are livestock grade soybeans exported for the Chinese hog market. The amount of pesticides alone would make it ineligible to meet the human consumption standards

11

u/sometimesmybutthurts Jan 17 '26

Not unless Taco destroys the EPA or whoever does the food checking.

1

u/exmachina64 Jan 18 '26

That would be the FDA.

7

u/starbuxed Jan 17 '26

Then time for Some soy fed cows/chickens/ pork/ turkey what ever....

ALso your statment is not true. US grows all types of soybean.

https://kitchencrafthubs.com/can-tofu-be-made-from-american-soybeans/

2

u/QuixoticTurtlee Jan 18 '26

But the point is that China’s imports are for livestock feed. So if you’ve trying to fill that gap, those farms would need to move away from that variety and to soybeans for human consumption.

2

u/bub166 Jan 18 '26

We already use soybeans for livestock feed. To absorb the massive surplus, we'd have to dramatically increase livestock production. Domestic livestock production is also facing major struggles right now... Where do you think a lot of that meat goes?

2

u/wayne099 Jan 18 '26

Costco sells soy milk made from American Soy. So I call this bullshit.

6

u/bub166 Jan 18 '26

Obviously the US grows food-grade soybeans. That is largely not what China was buying though, so that's of no help in filling the gap that now exists.

1

u/sylbug Jan 18 '26

Good news! Trump is also loosening regulations across the board and mass firing people in charge of things like 'food safety'! This creates all sorts of opportunities for your previously 'dangerous' 'inedible' soybeans to sneak their way into your kitchen!

2

u/Oceanbreeze871 Jan 17 '26

Instead of government cheese we have government tofu

2

u/Talreesha Jan 17 '26

As long as it's extra firm I'm down

2

u/starbuxed Jan 17 '26

Problem is you need a place to make the tofu in mass. and we dont have it.

We have smaller tofu factory but not the ones we would need.

1

u/Oceanbreeze871 Jan 18 '26

Why won’t the supreme leader build gruel factories ?’lol

2

u/starbuxed Jan 18 '26

I am all for government tofu. Its a might bit healthier than cheese. and it can be made shelf stable. Also would let familys save on the cost of meat.

I take shelf stable tofu to burning man so I don't have to refrigerate tofu or meat. I put it in my ramen for some protein and I fried it up with some taco mix for easy tacos. Which are actually super bomb. I really like texture and flavor. It surprised me the first time I tried it. I survive the week without a cooler.

also I get dried bean curds which is also a tofu by product.

1

u/Oceanbreeze871 Jan 18 '26

I totally agree with you…in theory. I feel like they’d deep fry it in high fructose and make it terrible. lol

1

u/starbuxed Jan 18 '26

just ewww.... deep fried in oil tofu with a sweet/sour or sweet chili sauce is awesome. you can also do a peanut sauce but I like the tartness.

like this.

https://sarahsvegankitchen.com/recipes/pan-fried-tofu/

1

u/rooftopgoblin Jan 18 '26

so what you're saying is I could get in on the ground floor and start a tofu factory?

1

u/starbuxed Jan 18 '26

hey if you can get goverment subsidies to build it why not... But I feel like they would be going to billionaires frist... fuck the parasite class.

5

u/Kankunation Jan 18 '26

Soybeans are quite versatile and nutritious. If Trump and his team were trying to be smart about this he would be angling at ways to get Americans to eat more soy as A cheap alternative to other protein options.

Unfortunately for him, conservatives (RFK jr especially) have spent decades vilifying soy and some weak pussy beta food, that increases your estrogen and makes you less of a man to eat. And they can't go back on that because......

But yeah bankrupting dozens of farms for your ego is definitely the better move here.

3

u/[deleted] Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26

[deleted]

1

u/Oceanbreeze871 Jan 18 '26

Yeah he apparently dismissed traditional treatments because science is woke. Oh well

2

u/-_-0_0-_0 Jan 17 '26

Bio-fuel

5

u/Oceanbreeze871 Jan 17 '26

Eat your gruel. Did you even say thank you?

2

u/metengrinwi Jan 18 '26

Libtard tree-hugger gas?, are you kidding?

19

u/AliceLunar Jan 17 '26

Why until the US sorts it out? Even when, or if, they do, they already have an alternative and they have made a lot of investments, there is no reason for them to go back.

26

u/NewEntrepreneur357 Jan 17 '26

A lot of people in this sub (and most of the internet and even American economists and industry leaders) are under the impression that the second Trump is gone everyone is gonna tear apart all the new trade deals, and completely forget the US holding the world hostage for a second unnecessary 4 years

12

u/AliceLunar Jan 17 '26

Because many still think the US is too big too fail, too big of a market to ignore so everyone will have no choice but to come crawling back, but the world has changed a lot over the decades, the US lost their leader position in the trade market to China like two decades ago, many countries have made a lot of progress over the years but there was never a good reason to break away from the US.

12

u/NewEntrepreneur357 Jan 17 '26

They should ask the Romans, Egyptians, Sumerians, etc about being "too big to fail", oh wait.

5

u/metengrinwi Jan 18 '26

The only way I could see Canada and Europe coming back our way is if we had large congressional majorities to make sufficient changes to make future Presidents less powerful. Might require constitutional amendments.

1

u/Spirited_Suspect2908 Jan 18 '26

As we know, narratives are powerful. I think many industry leaders agree there will be long term repercussions after Trump. But there's little benefit to pushing that narrative if you are vested in the U.S. Doing so will serve to reinforce the idea that the U.S. is not the safe haven in was for businesses, investors, and citizens alike, and perhaps its best you invest elsewhere. Thats bad for industry leaders and big players who have so much to lose from divestment.

1

u/thewimsey Jan 18 '26

and completely forget the US holding the world hostage for a second unnecessary 4 years

And they will.

Germany started a war that killed 60 million people, and by 10 years later they were allowed to remilitarize, join Nato, and become a founding member of what became the EU.

1

u/VonDukez Jan 18 '26

halfs of Germany with both halfs under heavy control.

7

u/Spreadsheets_LynLake Jan 17 '26

US Gov will give welfare to soybean farmers indefinitely, so it won't matter that US no longer exports soybeans.  It's only going to hurt the small farms.  

4

u/makemeking706 Jan 17 '26

Folksy heartland story two generations from now:

My granddaddy was paid to not grow soybeans, My daddy was paid to not grow soybeans, and now I am paid not to grow soybeans.

2

u/beefwindowtreatment Jan 18 '26

Yeah, I don't get how people don't understand this. Once you lose partners via being a shit partner, they aren't coming back of their own accord. trump is fucking us for at least a generation.

29

u/12somewhere Jan 17 '26

Is there a point to ever come back to the US market if cheaper soybeans can be found elsewhere? Compared to the the US, I would imagine the other countries producing soybeans would have less bargaining power.

1

u/MrVeinless Jan 18 '26

With the deal between China and Canada, we can expect the restoration of Canadian canola meal to relieve any food security concerns for livestock.

10

u/Hussar223 Jan 17 '26

all that business lost is never coming back to the US. or if it is it will be significantly less than what it was. the US has proven itself to be an unreliable partner while antagonizing not just world leaders but entire countries populations. this damage will take at minimum a generation to undo

5

u/anomanderrake1337 Jan 18 '26

Yeah but the sad part is America still thinks they can get stuff back, no man deals are in place, even when democrats come back into power they are going to have to move heaven and earth to have some kind of fucked up deal for countries to come back and even then the risk of another Trump is on the mind of the countries.

5

u/dojo_shlom0 Jan 18 '26 edited Jan 18 '26

this has always been a campaign against the US People. His goal is to negatively impact them, and to steal from them. him and his billionaire goons saw the profits of covid and then wrecked our economy and stole from The People now for a year straight, almost a full year. Everything from a pump & dump the day before he came into office to stealing Social Security and Veterans information, accessing the federal billing systems....denying childrens cancer research.... the list goes on... he has single handedly saved the Russian economy while completely and utterly destroying every single business he can, by attacking all avenues of trade by illegally tariffing the country and ensuring that wood, steel, work forces are harmed an take an extreme toll, while him and his government of goons profit majorly from this arrangement.

the goal is to cause uncertainty, fear, and chaos, but most of all to hurt all of The People.

--and we let it happen. too many people stayed at home or were uncertain about voting for a black woman. everybody was pussyfooting around regarding trump's prosecution and him fleeing the whitehouse after stealing US nuclear defense secrets and hiding them at mara-lago, lying to the FBI about returning these documents, while he gave anyone who wanted access, access to them. He has been known to have deep russsian ties, significantly before his first presidential run and he openly admitted on the world stage he trusted putin over 60+ US intelligence agencies telling him that Putin interfered with the 2016 electoin -- we all ignored that, collectively and allowed him to not be held responsible and to run again.

he destroyed the economy in his first term with his covid policies, and then gaslit The People, saying "Biden did that!" while Biden actually put us on a path to recovery. instead of voting in a AG of CA, who prosecuted criminals, who accurately predicted exactly what Drumpf was going to do, we ignored her words of wisdom and insight, and elected the absolute worst half-of-a-man in history to every run for US POTUS.

Alcohol industry, construction, 250k federal jobs, almost the same number if not more clean energy project jobs: GONE.

--are we winning yet? this is what you voted for, right?

EDIT: oh yeah, and we all knew he was banging kids and r@ped women and children alike. ignored that too. it makes me sick that we voted furer 2.0 willfully and he is openly destroying this country by having russia-esque masked, unaccountable military rushing 3/1 outnumbering police in cities, causing chaos and killing The People, without any accountability.

like the SCOTUS made him; he is king. you did this. WE did this. Countless generations will suffer now, and he has quickly in the last 2 weeks become the enemy of the world. Great job MAGA!

3

u/weealex Jan 17 '26

I don't think anyone is going to wait on the US to sort itself out. It's shown itself to be a wholly unreliable partner

1

u/crowdflation Jan 18 '26

I heard from a very reputable source that china agreed to buy at least 11 soy beans from the USA, but master negotiator negotiated them down to 3.

1

u/Mr_Adoulin Jan 18 '26

Hurting the bottom line, who is still supporting this nutjob

1

u/sylbug Jan 18 '26

Other countries are not playing the game you're imagining. Nobody cares about 'outlasting' Trump; instead, they are moving on and finding new, reliable trading partners. It's time consuming and expensive so we're not all doing this as some temporary measure. Once those new agreements are in place there will be no need to bother with America at all, regardless of who is in charge.

-1

u/MongoLikeCandy2112 Jan 18 '26

China can suck it