U.S. Agricultural Products Plummet in Competitiveness in China Markets

U.S. Agricultural Products Plummet in Competitiveness in China Markets

Edited by: www.immyhitech.com    www.immy.cn 

                                                                                                                                         Edited date：29th April 2025

The implementation of the United States ‘reciprocal tariffs’ policy, like a heavy bomb into the global agricultural market, 

triggering a violent chain reaction.

U.S. soybeans, Malaysian palm oil and other agricultural prices plummeted, while the U.S. corn unexpectedly turned red. 

Behind this phenomenon is the global trade pattern adjustment triggered by the unilateral trade bullying behaviour of the 

United States.

According to the announcement released by the Tariff and Taxation Commission of the State Council, China's 

countermeasures cover a wide range of areas such as tariffs, unreliable entity lists, export controls, and anti-monopoly 

investigations, which are a systematic counterattack against the US's trade bullying behaviour.

Professionals pointed out that the impact of ‘reciprocal tariffs’ on the agricultural market is only the beginning 

of a new round of market ‘chaos’ rather than the end of ‘boots on the ground’.

The future direction of the market will depend more on the two sides of the negotiations and games, rather than 

just a simple calculation of the economic impact.

U.S. agricultural products into the Chinese market cost-effective greatly reduced. China is an important global

 importer of agricultural products, mainly importing soybeans, wheat, corn, sorghum, meat, etc. from the United States.

With China's countermeasures in place, superimposed on the 10-15 per cent tariffs previously imposed on US agricultural

 products worth around $21 billion, the competitiveness of US agricultural products in the Chinese market has fallen sharply.

In 2024, China's main sources of wheat imports will be Australia (3.359 million tonnes), Canada (2.548 million tonnes), 

France (2.305 million tonnes) and the United States (1.902 million tonnes), with the U.S. share being relatively small.

In terms of soybean imports, Brazil is gradually replacing the United States as China's most important source of soybean 

imports, with more than 70 per cent of imports from Brazil under normal circumstances.

Sorghum, an important brewing and feed ingredient, has seen rapid growth in China's imports in recent years.

 in 2024, China imported 8.66 million tonnes of sorghum, of which U.S. sorghum accounted for 65%.

However, the pattern of China's corn imports is also changing. in 2021, U.S. corn exports to China reached 19.82 

million tonnes, but after 2022, about half of the imported corn comes from Brazil, and Ukraine has become the

 main source of China's corn imports.

Currently, China's imports of agricultural products such as soybeans and corn have formed a more obvious pattern

 of diversified sourcing, and its reliance on U.S. imports has weakened considerably.

At the same time, China's domestic production of agricultural products increased year by year. In recent years, 

China has introduced a series of policies and measures to benefit and assist farmers and revitalise the agricultural 

industry, which have strongly promoted the continuous growth of domestic agricultural production.

China's soybean production has exceeded the 20 million tonnes mark, corn production has also seen a large increase, 

peanuts, rapeseed production is rising steadily, rice, wheat and other food grains supply exceeds demand.

Therefore, although the ‘reciprocal tariffs’ in the short term may have a significant impact on the global as well 

as China's agricultural market, but in the long term, China's agricultural market supply will not be cut off, and 

prices are expected to remain relatively stable.

Industry insiders expect that due to market sentiment fluctuations, today's opening domestic agricultural commodity

 futures spot market prices will fluctuate significantly.

Various varieties of price trends will be more differentiated, soybean meal, corn is more resistant to decline, the probability

 of vegetable oil prices decline, the cotton market in the weakening may appear independent market. 

According to the futures daily finishing editor