WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that soybeans will be a major topic of discussion when he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping in four weeks.
“The Soybean Farmers of our Country are being hurt because China is, for ‘negotiating’ reasons only, not buying,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Chinese importers have not yet bought soybeans from the autumn U.S. harvest during the trade war between Washington and Beijing, costing U.S. farmers billions of dollars in lost sales.
Autumn is normally the prime marketing season for U.S. soybeans as farmers bring in fresh crops from their fields and global buyers wait for top-supplier Brazil to harvest its next crop.
China, the world’s top soybean importer, has turned to South America for supplies while it avoids U.S. crops, pressuring soybean futures at the Chicago Board of Trade.
Last month, Trump said he and Xi made progress on a TikTok agreement during a call and would next meet face-to-face in South Korea to discuss trade, illicit drugs and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
(Reporting by Bhargav Acharya and Jasper Ward and Tom Polansek; Editing by Doina Chiacu and Diane Craft)
