Did China Buy More Beans?

On Thursday morning the USDA released the first Weekly Sales Report since the partial Federal Government shutdown began. Export sales for the current week were not released but just the first one that was missed for the week of December 20, 2018. That report showed China purchased a lot of beans from the U.S. even with the trade war and tariffs. With the trade talks between China and the U.S. last week there was some speculation that China would be buying more beans.

The market bears of course downplay the talk that China would buy more beans from the U.S. Driving home Friday afternoon I heard on the National News President Trump say he informed Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue that China agreed to buy another 5 million metric Tons of soybeans. That would be around 186 million bushel of beans. On last Thursday the USDA reported China bought around 86 million bushel of U.S. beans,

Remember when this trade war with China began the USDA increased the U.S. bean carryover to about 950 million bushel in the Supply Demand Report. Apparently the USDA assumed China would not buy any beans from the U.S. It is going to be interesting to see how the USDA deals with these numbers in the Supply Demand Report that will be released next Friday! Especially with less than ideal growing conditions in Brazil.