* Reuters last week…

Chinese buyers booked at least 10 cargoes of Argentine soybeans after Buenos Aires scrapped grain export taxes, three traders said on Tuesday, dealing another setback to U.S. farmers already shut out of their top market and hit by low prices.

Argentina’s temporary tax move boosts the competitiveness of its soybeans, prompting traders to secure cargoes for fourth-quarter inventories in China, a period usually dominated by U.S. shipments but now clouded by Washington’s trade war with Beijing. […]

The deals are a fresh blow for U.S. farmers, who are missing out on billions of dollars of soybean sales to China halfway through their prime marketing season as unresolved trade talks freeze exports and rival South American suppliers led by Brazil step in to fill the gap, traders and analysts have said.

“Every time China turns to South America instead of the U.S., soybean farmers and our farm families here at home lose out,” said Caleb Ragland, a farmer from Magnolia, Kentucky, and president of the American Soybean Association.

* Fortune…

During Trump’s first administration, U.S. farmers lost $27 billion in agricultural exports between mid-2018 and 2019 as a result of a trade war with China, according to a 2022 report from the USDA. During that same period, the U.S. market share of Chinese soybean imports plummeted to a 30-year low of 19%, the ASA reported. Brazil’s market share reached its peak of 75%. Years later, U.S. soybean farmers have yet to fully recover, Todd Main, the director of market development at the Illinois Soybean Association, told Fortune.

“The takeaway that we have from the data of the last time we did this is that the U.S. lost about 20% of our market share, and it never came back,” Main said. […]

Farmers aren’t banking on a bailout, either. They’re looking for a trade deal—or at least stable enough ground to grow their businesses, Illinois Soybean Association’s Main said.

“We can grow anything. What we really want is good relations with our trading partners,” he said. “We want markets. We don’t want bailouts.”

According to the Illinois Soybean Association, “60 percent of the soybeans grown in Illinois find their way to international markets.” In 2023, Illinois exported $4.5 billion worth of soybeans.

* WQAD yesterday…

Representatives from six Middle Eastern and Asian countries will tour Illinois in a four-day event. The Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) is hosting international buyers from China, Vietnam, Egypt, Jordan, Singapore and the island of Mauritius.

“To be very blunt with you, with the tariffs, trade situation, the instability that’s been created in agriculture, (means) these relationships are more important than ever,” IDOA Director Jerry Costello said. “We’re thrilled to have it here in the state of Illinois.” […]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service reports that China bought $12.64 billion of soybeans from the U.S. [last year.] This year, China has not accepted one order of soybeans from the U.S. […]

“You know who’s benefited? Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay,” Costello said. “Since the last set of tariffs that went into effect, starting, I think they were put in place in 2017. If you look at just soybean-specific trade, Brazil has probably at least tripled, if not quadrupled, its soy sales to China.”

* Brownfield Ag News…

[Illinois AG Director] Costello tells Brownfield the state can’t circumvent federal tariffs, but it can work to build relationships with export partners.

“Trying to make sure that we’re retaining relationships and also recruiting new buyers, letting these folks know the state of Illinois wants to do business with them,” he says. […]

“Our grain tours last year did about $159 million worth of business just from those tours, which was up $30 million from the year prior,” he says.

* More…

* Pontiac Daily Leader | Illinois grain tour brings global buyers to Midwest farms: The Illinois Department of Agriculture is preparing to host its second Illinois grain tour of 2025. The event will welcome international buyers from six countries including China, Vietnam, Egypt, Jordan, Singapore and the island of Mauritius, according to a community announcement. The four-day tour, scheduled for Sept. 29 through Oct. 2, aims to foster relationships that could boost export sales of Illinois agricultural products. Last month, buyers from Latin American countries participated in a similar tour. This year, the groups were split due to the program’s success and the high number of interested participants.

* Politico | China weaponizes ag imports to target Trump and US farmers: It’s a strategy that appears to be working. Powerful agriculture lobbying groups, traditionally Trump allies, have flooded the White House with complaints that the tariffs are responsible for China’s snub of the U.S. soybean crop. A person close to the administration said it was “ruffled” and “completely caught off guard,” by the outcry from soybean farmers warning of the potential for financial ruin. That prompted a rush to brief senior officials as well as the president in recent weeks. “There was an information gap. But that was a learning opportunity,” said the person, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

* AP | Trump’s trade battle with China puts US soybean farmers in peril: China’s retaliatory tariffs also hit U.S. growers of sorghum, corn and cotton, and even geoduck divers have been affected. But soybeans stand out because of the crop’s outsized importance to U.S. agricultural exports. Soybeans are the top U.S. food export, accounting for about 14% of all farm goods sent overseas. And China has been by far the largest foreign buyer. Last year, the U.S. exported nearly $24.5 billion worth of soybeans, and China accounted for more than $12.5 billion. That compared with $2.45 billion by the European Union, the second-largest buyer. This year, China hasn’t bought beans since May.

* NYT | China Bought $12.6 Billion in U.S. Soybeans Last Year. Now, It’s $0: The sale of soybeans in the spring and summer is always slow, as China and other countries turn to Brazil, which harvests in February and March. Typically, more than half of American soybean exports are sold between October and December. If Chinese buyers continue to stay away, American soybean farmers will be in a rough place. Continued slow sales of soybeans, and an expected bumper corn crop in a number of states, are raising worries that there will not be enough storage space for grains this fall. There are fears that grain elevators, which buy and store large quantities of crops before selling them, will simply stop accepting soybeans, as they lack confidence they’ll be able to export them.