China Promised to Buy More U.S. Farm Goods. It Hasn’t Happened.

When President Trump met with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing in May, the United States announced that China had agreed to sharply increase its purchases of American agricultural products.

The pledge, one of China’s major commitments after the high-profile meeting, appeared to offer relief to U.S. farmers battered by the trade war between the two countries.

Four months later, there is little sign of a broad Chinese buying spree.

The White House announced in May that China would buy at least $17 billion a year of U.S. farm goods through 2028, with the target prorated for 2026. Soybeans were not included: China had already vowed separately to step up purchases from American farmers.

Yet in the first seven months of 2026, China bought only $3.9 billion of U.S. agricultural products, excluding soybeans, according to the most recent Agriculture Department data. The amount was only slightly more than during the same period last year, when sales were at a six-year low as the two countries imposed tit-for-tat tariffs on each other.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/21/business/china-agriculture-trade-soybeans.html