China Buys 2 Million Tons of U.S. Soybeans Post Trade Talks

Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

• President Trump says Beijing agreed to buy 5 million tons.

• Purchase is a sign of goodwill as negotiations move to IP.

China has snapped up more U.S. soybeans following two days of trade talksin Washington.

State-run buyers Cofco Corp. and Sinograin purchased more than one million tons of American soybeans each, the companies said in separate statements on Saturday.

The purchases are “to implement the consensus that the leaders of both China and the U.S. have come to," according to almost identical statements from the companies.

The soybeans will be shipped in the April-July period and loaded at ports both in the U.S. Gulf and the Pacific Northwest, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg earlier. The transaction comes ahead of China’s Lunar New Year holidays, when Cofco and Sinograin are expected to be absent from the market, the people said.

The purchase comes after President Donald Trump said that China, the top soybean importer, had agreed to buy a total of 5 million tons of U.S. supplies following this week’s talks in Washington. That’s on top of the estimated 5 million bought in the weeks after Trump met with his counterpart Xi Jinping in December.

China has been buying U.S. soybeans as a sign of goodwill while trade delegations try to sort out wider problems such as intellectual property.

Bloomberg.com