As Trump calls for China to quadruple its soybean purchases from the US, Brazil is one to be concerned as they have been China’s top soybeans supplier for a while now. For some context, China is the world’s largest buyer of soybeans but are facing a bit of a tough situation this year amid a supply glut in the market.
Beijing made a record amount of imports in early 2025 but are now having to deal with very weak demand conditions as well as peak supply period from Brazil lasting longer than previous years. That means China is going to be dealing with an abundance of supply heading into Q4 – which is the peak marketing season for the US.
In fact, China even exported roughly 127,000 tons of soybean oil in 1H 2025. That exceeds the full amount of whatever they exported through the whole of 2024.
So, what about this phone call between Xi and Lula? There’s no details revealed but one can presume that assurances on soybeans trade would have been part of it. That especially as Trump wants China to step up soybean purchases as part of a gesture of goodwill to improve trade negotiations.
However, how much of a threat is the US to Brazil’s exports to China? Well, not much ever since the whole Phase One trade deal debacle. From yesterday: Of soybeans and trade deals
Looking at the latest shipping data for June, China imported 9.73 million tons of soybeans from Brazil – a record for the June month. Meanwhile, they only imported a measly 724,000 tons from the US. And amid the supply glut faced at the moment, Beijing has yet to even make any booking of US soybean cargoes for Q4 with buyers citing “uncertainty on trade negotiations”.
So, yeah. The US wants China to step up soybean purchases as we look towards the coming quarter(s). But it really couldn’t be coming at a bad time for Beijing amid the market situation. And in any case, Brazil’s market share will not likely be threatened all too much. Even if it does, one can look back to 2019-2020 when China only stepped up US imports to keep up appearances for a while. All that before reverting back to where we are today.
This article was written by Justin Low at investinglive.com.