CHICAGO (Reuters) - China’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. soybeans, threatened for weeks and enacted Friday, have driven down prices and triggered a wave of bargain shopping by importers in other countries stocking up on cheap U.S. supplies, according to a Reuters analysis of government data.
Chinese buyers have so far this year accounted for just 17 percent of all advanced purchases of the fall U.S. soybean harvest - down from an average of 60 percent over the past decade, the analysis found. They are instead loading up on Brazilian soybeans, which now sell at a premium of up to $1.50 a bushel as U.S. soybean futures have fallen 17 percent over six weeks to about $8.50, their lowest level in nearly a decade.
The price gap has sparked a run on U.S. soybeans by importers from Mexico to Pakistan to Thailand, according to the analysis of U.S. Agriculture Department data.
Even as China has retreated, all importers’ advanced purchases of the next U.S. soybean crop shot up 27 percent through June, at 8 million tonnes, compared to the same period last year, the analysis showed.
The purchases are the latest example of how politics are upending billions of dollars in global trade flows as U.S. President Donald Trump fights a trade war with China.
Beijing imposed tariffs on $34 billion worth of U.S. products on Friday, from soybeans and cotton to automobiles and airplanes, in retaliation for U.S. tariffs enacted the same day on Chinese goods of equal value.
The decline of China’s purchases of U.S. soybeans and the jump in those from other countries amount to a collective bet against any swift resolution of the escalating trade war between the world’s top two economies.
Even Brazil, the world’s top soybean exporter, is
