A meeting is reportedly set between President Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping on Thursday that could turn things back around for U.S. soybean producers.
“In case you don’t know, I’m actually a soybean farmer so, I have felt this pain, too,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday on ABC’s This Week, commenting that he has also been personally impacted by the Chinese boycott on U.S. soybeans. The New York Times has reported that Bessent owns as much as $25 million worth of corn and soybean farmland in North Dakota, which he rents out for more than $1 million a year in income.
Bessent says that a “framework” is ready for a new trade deal with China, which, he says, would include U.S. soybeans.
“I believe that the Chinese will be making substantial purchases again,” said Bessent, although he didn’t go into any further details on such an agreement.
“I think we have addressed the farmers’ concerns, and I’m not going to get ahead of the President, but I believe when the announcement of the deal with China is made public, our soybean farmers will feel very good about what’s going on both for this season and the coming seasons for several years,” he said.
Bessent also responded to the recent criticism of President Trump’s $20 billion bailout as a show of support for Argentina’s President Javier Milei. However, reports earlier this month also indicate that Argentina had also made significant sales of their soybeans to China in the process.
“Those soybeans were always going to get purchased. [The Chinese] just did it at a time when the Argentines had lifted their export taxes, so those soybeans were always going to be on the market. It’s a global market. The three leading suppliers are Brazil, Argentina, and the U.S., and I believe that we have brought the market back into equilibrium,” said Bessent.
Trump and Xi are reportedly meeting face-to-face this Thursday in South Korea.
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