Commodity Markets Want Hard Proof of Trade Deals with China
Published: Friday, June 5, 2026
Remind me to never take commodity market or stock market advice from the current resident of the White House.
Two days before President Donald Trump's quick "beans, beef and Boeing" trip to China, November soybeans closed trading at $12.14 a bushel. Two days later, after the president announced a "big" soybean deal with China's President Xi Jinping, November soybean futures dropped a hard 44 cents lower.
So, too, the world's leading airliner manufacturer, Boeing. On May 13, Boeing stock closed at $240.60 a share. Four days and one presidential announcement of a "big" sale of Boeing aircraft to China and the company's shares tumbled to $215.
Even cattle, current superstar of ag markets, couldn't escape the president's minus touch; cattle futures slipped $9 a hundredweight after it was announced China would reopen its markets to U.S. beef.
Why all of this backsliding in just two days?
First, it's pretty clear that both the commodity and stock markets have serious doubts about whether these so-called deals are actual deals at all. Everyone from Chinese soybean buyers to American farmers have been stung by the White House's big talk in the past, so most require hard proof nowadays.
And, no, it's not a good thing that global markets, our ag customers, and much of the business world now doesn't trust the word of an American president. This long-earned gold standard will be hard to reclaim.
The markets aren't alone. "While Mr. Trump and his advisers said China had agreed to buy" 200 airplanes and billions in ag goods, reported the New York Times, "Chinese officials said little publicly about the commitments."
Five days after the president's return to Washington, Reuters reported May 20 that little had changed. While "China and the U.S. have agreed to cut tariffs on agricultural trade ... the Ministry of Commerce ... left several questions about implementation unanswered."
While no one actually says an ag trade deal with China is in trouble, many find it troublesome that China is playing the cool customer. A just-published study of last year's tariff fight between it and the U.S. puts hard numbers on just how much is at stake.
The study, co-authored by North Dakota State University ag economists Shawn Arita, Sandro Steinback and Xiting Zhuang, notes that China's retaliatory tariffs "reduced U.S. agricultural exports to China by an estimated $14.9 billion on an annualized basis ... from March 2025 to February 2026."
And while U.S. soybean growers were hard hit, others got smacked, too.
"Soybeans account(ed) for approximately $6.8 billion, or roughly half of the total. Beef and cotton each contribute(d) about $1.3 billion, tree nuts about $964 million, and corn another $333 million. The remainder (was) spread across coarse grains, pork, poultry, dairy and a long trail of specialty categories."
And while this wasn't the first trade fight between President Trump and President Xi, it was the costliest: "The annualized trade losses for the 2018-19 round, measured on the same basis, were approximately $10.6 billion; the 2025-26 figure of $14.9 billion is roughly 41% larger."
And in case you think in color—like the red and blue used by Washington these days—two big blue states, California and Illinois, each took a $1.2 billion hit in the tariff fight, according to the study. One red state, Iowa, also had a similar "exposure."
Other states that got clipped, however, were red strongholds like "Texas, Kansas, Nebraska ... Missouri, Indiana, South Dakota, Ohio, Arkansas and North Dakota."
Markets, too, use only two colors, red and black, but even then they know baloney when they see it.
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