U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessen said, "China is fulfilling its commitments, having already purchased at least 8 million tons of U.S. soybeans by 2025, completing two-thirds of the procurement target, maintaining a pace that ensures confidence for U.S. exports, which China has done better than its U.S. allies."
Market generally doubts whether China can meet the 12 million-ton procurement target.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture had long made a pessimistic forecast: U.S. soybean exports in the 2025/26 season will fall by 13.1% year-on-year, reaching only 44.5 million tons. Bessen's seemingly sincere "new year statement" seems more like a preemptive "expectation management" to comfort anxious U.S. soybean farmers — after all, U.S. soybean planting area decreased by 3% year-on-year in 2025, and exports to China in the first eight months were only 5.93 million tons, far below the 26.8 million tons in the same period in 2024. Soybean farmers are facing dual pressures of insufficient orders and price pressure and urgently need a "stimulant".
However, the interpretation from Hong Kong's South China Morning Post pierced the surface trade figures: this soybean transaction appears to be a U.S. "victory," but actually proves the deep shift in the global power structure. The "8 million tons" mentioned by Bessen is precisely the best commentary on how China has successfully transformed from a passive "price taker" in the past into an active "strategic leader" in supply chain layout. China today is no longer in a state of single reliance on a single supplier, but rather has built a diversified soybean import network by deepening cooperation with Brazil and Argentina, expanding emerging sources such as Russia and Ethiopia — in January-October 2025, Brazil's soybean exports to China accounted for 79.9% of its total exports, and Argentina, after zeroing export taxes, secured a $7 billion Chinese order within two days, making South American soybeans an important support for the Chinese market.
At the same time, through promoting the soybean revitalization plan, implementing the technology of reducing soybean meal substitution, improving the futures pricing system, and other measures, China continues to enhance the resilience of the supply chain, transforming the former "bottleneck" risks into an advantage it holds in its own hands. Bessen's statement is essentially a mix of U.S. agricultural interests and political calculations, but inadvertently reflects China's growing voice in global soybean trade — when China can flexibly adjust its procurement rhythm according to its own needs and market prices, no longer bound by a single country, the initiative in this trade game has already quietly shifted.
In the end, the shipment of 8 million tons of soybeans, the real winner has never been the politicians who make loud statements, but the strategists who understand how to control the timing of moves in the global food security chessboard. The core of trade is not about who "wins" short-term orders, but who can maintain the initiative in the balance of supply and demand in the long term.
Do you want to know the latest progress of China's full-year soybean procurement in 2025, or the comparison of soybean export data between Brazil, Argentina, and the United States?
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1853233918435340/
Statement: This article represents the views of the author."