Chicago | Reuters — U.S. soybean futures climbed to the highest level since June 2024 on Monday as China’s state-owned grain trader COFCO ramped up buying following the recent Washington-Beijing trade deal, traders said.
Corn futures also rose, while wheat futures set their highest price since July.
COFCO bought at least 14 cargoes of U.S. soybeans, or at least 840,000 metric tons, for shipment in December and January, two traders with knowledge of the deals told Reuters.
The deals were China’s largest since an October summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea. The White House said last month that China had agreed to buy 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans this year, but only a small volume of sales had occurred before Monday.
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“We’ve already just got about 330,000 (tons) out, but we’ll get there,” U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a clip of a Fox Business interview that was posted earlier on Monday on platform X by a White House account.
“We’re going to get that deal signed. It’s not even signed yet. And then we’re off to the races,” she added.
January soybean futures SF26 ended up 32-3/4 cents at $11.57-1/4 per bushel at the Chicago Board of Trade. CBOT December corn CZ25 rose 4-1/2 cents to close at $4.34-3/4 per bushel, and December soft red winter wheat WZ25 closed up 17 cents at $5.44-1/4 per bushel.
On Friday, Trump said China would buy U.S. soybeans and other farm products and cited bilateral talks on the subject.
“Soybeans are rising because of the comments by President Trump late on Friday saying China will buy more soybeans from the U.S.” said Matt Ammermann, commodity risk manager at StoneX.
China, the world’s biggest soybean importer, turned to South America for supplies during its dispute with Washington. It is now grappling with a glut after months of record imports, curbing prospects for U.S. exports.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture slightly pared its U.S. soybean export estimate for the current crop season on Friday. Some analysts said the estimate still looked too high.
— Reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago and Michael Hogan in Hamburg; Additional reporting by Naveen Thukral in Singapore.
