Chinese buying of American farm goods other than soybeans is heading for a seven-year low this year, even though Beijing agreed to buy billions of dollars of them, according to a Reuters analysis of customs data carried by The Cattle Site.
China bought $7.2 billion of those goods, from meat to corn, between January and September, the lowest for that period since 2019. In May the White House said Beijing had agreed to buy $17 billion of US farm goods a year from 2026, with this year's target prorated, on top of an earlier soybean commitment made last October. China is on track to meet the soybean target.
Whether China has broken the commitment is unclear. The White House has not said whether the clock began with the May announcement or starts only when China's proposed tariff cuts are finalised, and those cuts have not been finalised.
"Beans are trading, but other commodities are not," said Tim Lust, chief executive of the National Sorghum Producers.
Analysts said weak Chinese demand and competition make the target hard to reach unless Beijing orders state buyers in. China imported $5.6 billion of US corn at the 2021 peak, almost 20 million metric tons, but COFCO Futures, a broker affiliated with the state trader, now forecasts about 900,000 tons for the 2026/27 marketing year because of ample domestic supply.
US sorghum shipments to China peaked at 6.5 million metric tons in 2021 and now meet competition from Brazil, which gained access in September 2025 and has shipped 1.7 million tons this year. Pork and chicken are oversupplied in China, and US beef is expensive because herds have shrunk. About half of US fed-cattle slaughter capacity also cannot export to China, the US Meat Export Federation says.
Reporting by Melanie Epp for The Cattle Site.
Photo: Judd McCullum / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: The Cattle Site
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