As we've pointed out a few times, the silver lining. from China's point of view, to the swine fever epidemic is that China doesn't have nearly as much pressure to buy soybeans as they would in a normal year.
First up, Reuters:
A private importer in China last week bought U.S. rice for the first time ever, in the midst of a trade war between the two nations, a rice industry group said on Wednesday.
The Chinese importer bought two containers, about 40 tonnes, of medium-grain rice from California-based Sun Valley Rice, said Michael Klein, a spokesman for USA Rice, a trade group that promotes the sale of the U.S. grain.
The U.S. rice was milled and packaged into bags for consumer and food service use, Klein said.
China was a major buyer of U.S. soybeans and pork before the trade war started by the Trump administration. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that China had agreed to make unspecified new purchases of U.S. farm products after he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping, but purchases of major export crops have so far been elusive.....MUCH MORE
It was not immediately clear whether the rice purchase was a goodwill gesture following the Trump-Xi meeting. The rice deal follows a sale of 544,000 tonnes of U.S. soybeans to China confirmed last week by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the largest such sale since March....
And from the South China Morning Post:
China won’t buy US agricultural products if Americans ‘flip-flop’ in trade talks – state media
Beijing also wants to see if Washington eases supply restrictions on Huawei before it commits to buying American soybeans, source says...MUCH MORE
Beans are not taking this news at all well, down 14 cents at 875.75 and undercutting the lows from two weeks ago:
