Wall Street Journal (May 16)
By one measure, President Trump’s Beijing summit “was a success. It didn’t achieve much, but it also didn’t appear to give away anything notable.” The caveat is that “we can’t be sure based on the few details leaking out from the parties,” some of which sound incredible. “Mr. Trump boasted about ‘fantastic’ Chinese purchases to come of U.S. soybeans and aircraft. But China didn’t confirm the sales, and by our count this is the second time China has bought the same American soybeans. Or is it the third?” In addition, Mr. Trump “also didn’t appear to bend to Mr. Xi’s threats on Taiwan, at least not so far.” If, however, Trump gives into China and “stops arming Taiwan, Mr. Xi will have won the veto over U.S. sales that the Chinese leader has long sought. It will send a message of weakness to our allies in the region.” Details like this, should they out, would make it a misnomer to call this “The Good-News-Is-No-News Summit.”
Tags: Aircraft, Allies, Arming, Beijing summit, Caveat. Leaking. Incredible. Fantastic, China, Misnomer, Purchases, Sales, Soybeans, Success, Taiwan, Threats, Trump, U.S., Veto, Weakness, Xi
Bloomberg (September 19)
“For the first time since at least the 1990s, China hasn’t bought any US soybeans at the start of the export season, a sign that Beijing is once again using agriculture as leverage in its trade fight with Washington.” In 2024, the US supplied “a fifth of China’s soybean imports, worth more than $12 billion, and accounting for over half of total US soy export value.” This year, “US farmers, flush with bumper harvests, are coping with prices near the lowest levels in years.”
Tags: $12 billion, 1990s, 2024, Agriculture, Bumper harvests, China, Export season, Leverage, Prices, Soybeans, Trade fight, U.S., Washington
Marketplace (August 31)
“After more than half a century in which the United States boasted a near-lock on being the world’s leading exporter of corn, the distinction has shifted to Brazil…. The reordering of the corn hierarchy follows a similar erosion of U.S. dominance in exports of other staple commodities, like wheat and soybeans, over the last decade or so.”
Tags: Brazil, Corn, Dominance, Erosion, Exporter, Exports, Hierarchy, Reordering, Soybeans, Staple commodities, U.S., Wheat, World’s leading
Business Insider (November 17)
“While you weren’t looking… the trade war with China went completely off the rails and lost its meaning.” The trade war ostensibly began to deal with the “theft of US intellectual property (IP).” This key issue has essentially been abandoned and the dispute has moved on. It now appears centered on “how many soybeans China will buy.”
Chicago Tribune (November 26)
“Global warming is a Midwest crisis in the making.” A just released federal climate change report predicts “sopping rains will damage crops, then heat waves will fry them. Humid conditions will spur the growth of pests and pathogens that will degrade the quality of stored corn or soybeans. Before mid-century… Midwest agricultural productivity will slip back to levels of the 1980s.”
Tags: Agriculture, Climate change, Corn, Crisis, Crops, Damage, Global warming, Heat waves, Midwest, Pathogens, Pests, Productivity, Rains, Soybeans
Bloomberg (July 20)
“What’s next for commodities after a recent price collapse? It looks like more bad news, if the chart watchers are right. The Bloomberg Commodity Index has tumbled about 10 percent from a high in May amid mounting concerns that a trade war could derail global growth, curbing demand for everything from aluminum to soybeans.”
Tags: Aluminum, Chart watchers, Commodities, Demand, Growth, Price collapse, Soybeans, Trade war, Tumbled
NBC News (June 25)
“The Trump Administration’s trade war is starting to have real impacts on farmers who grow everything from corn to cotton.” Soybeans look set to bear much of the economic pain. “Soybeans were the nation’s largest agricultural export in 2017 and China was the biggest buyer, purchasing 57 percent of the total. But since China announced the tariff, the price of soybeans has fallen by roughly 15 percent to a more than two-year low.”
Wall Street Journal (April 3)
“Donald Trump hasn’t been talking about the rising stock market lately, and no wonder. Stocks have given up their earlier gains since the President unveiled his protectionist trade agenda” amid concern over “uncertainty from rising trade tension.” So far, China’s response “is measured, affecting $3 billion in annual trade or about 2% of U.S. goods exports to China, but it sends a pointed message that a larger trade war would hurt American businesses, farmers in particular.” If China subsequently moves to target “America’s biggest exports to China, such as soybeans and Boeing aircraft,” the pain will be much greater.
Tags: Boeing, China, Concern, Exports, Farmers, Protectionist, Soybeans, Stock market, Trade, Trade war, Trump, U.S., Uncertainty
Wall Street Journal (December 4)
With rising production and falling prices, the ‘Peak Oil’ theory has again been debunked. The world routinely panics, then “relearns that supply responds to necessity and price.” The Malthusian hysteria has not been restricted to oil. There have “been regular warnings that the world is running out of soybeans, helium, chocolate, tunsgsten, you name it—and that population growth has become unsustainable. The warnings create a political or social panic for a while, only to be proved wrong.”
Tags: Chocolate, Debunked, helium, Malthus, Necessity, Panic, Peak Oil, Population growth, Price, Production, Soybeans, Supply, Tunsgsten
