President Donald Trump’s trip to China offered little assurance to US farmers looking for concrete signs of a pickup in trade between the two countries.
Officials promised billions in exports of American goods but gave few specifics, sending soybean futures to a three-week low while cotton fell by its daily trading limit.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in a Bloomberg Television interview said China will make “double-digit billion” purchases of American farm goods annually over the next three years. The new pact would encompass not just soybeans, but “everything else.”
Trump, meanwhile, told reporters on Air Force One that the Asian nation would buy billions of dollars in US soybeans, without any additional details. So far, no new deals have been announced.
Soybean and corn, which initially rose on Greer’s comments, flipped to losses. Cotton fell by as much 4.8% as traders “buy the rumor, sell the fact,” said Louis Barbera, a managing partner at VLM Commodities Ltd., adding that he doesn’t think the “bones of the markets changed” following the meeting.
