A Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier He Lifeng arrived in Washington on 19 September for four days of trade talks ahead of a planned meeting between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping on 24 September. Agricultural purchases and a tariff truce due to expire in November are among the main items on the table.

He Lifeng, a member of the Communist Party's Political Bureau, was expected to meet US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, with US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer also involved in the preparatory talks. China's commerce ministry said the sides would consult on economic and trade issues of mutual concern; as of 18 September Beijing had not formally confirmed Xi's travel. Rare-earth magnet supplies, artificial-intelligence cooperation and the wider tariff relationship are also expected to be discussed.

Soybeans sit at the centre of the farm agenda. China has committed to buying 25 million tonnes of US soybeans a year through 2028, up from a prior-year target of 12 million tonnes that Beijing reportedly met with 12.35 million tonnes shipped. Chinese buyers took roughly 1 million tonnes of US soybeans in the week before the talks, bringing the country close to the halfway mark of the new pledge before the summit. China keeps a 10 percent tariff on US farm imports, and analysts expect any relief agreed at the summit to draw private Chinese buyers back.

The buying has already moved prices. US soybean futures rose to their highest in nearly three years ahead of the talks, and USDA lifted its projected 2026–27 average farm price for soybeans by 60 cents to $12 a bushel while trimming ending stocks to 310 million bushels. Jim Sutter, chief executive of the US Soybean Export Council, has described farm trade, and soy in particular, as a long-standing stabiliser in the US–China relationship.

The two governments are working against a clock. The 2025 truce that paused tariff escalation expires in November, and new friction has appeared: on 3 September the Trump administration used Section 232 to impose a 100 percent tariff on Chinese drones over 25 kilograms or fitted with thermal imaging, and 25 percent on smaller drones without it. Agricultural drones used for spraying and crop monitoring, heavily supplied by Chinese makers, fall within the measure.

Analysts caution that Washington aims to manage the relationship rather than negotiate a sweeping agreement, with negotiators reportedly working toward quantified purchase targets for agriculture, energy and aircraft. Rare-earth export controls, semiconductor restrictions and rhetoric on Taiwan are all seen as capable of derailing the narrower understanding both sides appear to want. This meeting is distinct from the Trump–Xi summit in Busan, South Korea, in October 2025.

Photo: Lynn Betts, USDA NRCS / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

Source: Global Agriculture