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President Trump’s reputation for hardball looks more like a replay of the old Kenny Roger’s song “The Greatest.” First-time listeners might believe the boy is trying to hit the ball as he repeatedly throws and misses. Turns out, however, that the boy is the pitcher.
As traders repeatedly watch the global gamesmanship between Trump and China’s Xi Jinping, Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Trump and President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, the U.S. grain markets rise and fall on each swing and a miss. Maybe Trump’s the pitcher—and markets should focus more on fundamentals and less on hot air.
Corn
With the two corn production superpowers flexing their muscles, markets for the golden grain are under supply pressure. Friday’s weakness may also be fueled by Trump’s decision to end talks with Canada after Ontario’s provincial government used an unauthorized snip of Republican icon Ronald Reagan speaking out against tariffs.
Whatever the push, the low at mid-afternoon for nearby cash was $3.82, with corn losing nearly everything gained in the last week and no promise of a late-day push. From Dec 25 to May 26, prices across the board were down.
The trade may have priced expected U.S. crop production decreases into the market. But it may not have priced a bump in production in Brazil. CONAB’s 5-plus billion bump in corn production estimates for that South American country may be the most significant factor in Friday’s fall.
In the inning-by-inning report, global production news is a swing and a miss, U.S. drought and a reason to hope for tighter supplies could be a bunt and Brazil’s Bolsonaro continues to be a wild card in this world series of trade talks.
Soybeans
With USDA reports still leaving traders in a data delay, will next week’s soybean market go sideways as the world holds its collective breath on the way to talks between Trump and Xi?
The market has climbed each time China seems prepared to come to the plate, only to fall again when talks fizzled and Trump instead threw out higher tariffs.
Though global exports showed promise earlier this year, keeping China on the bench well into this first quarter of new crop buying is weighing on the soybean market.
Wheat
Wheat trading was mixed to mostly flat on Friday, but Total Farm Marketing’s Naomi Blohm sees a bull on the horizon. Blohm writes that “even with plentiful supplies of wheat, demand is equally strong, and global ending stocks of wheat are lower now than they were just two years ago.”
If the cure for low prices really is low prices, then the heated export pace for U.S. wheat certainly plays into Blohm’s optimism.
With global players swinging heavy bats, the most productive advice is for farmers and traders to keep their eye on the ball – or, rather, all of the balls – flying on this field. Harvest is no time to take a water break.
Though talk across farm country hinges on a continued low in the ag economy, Blohm is not the only player who sees support for higher prices in 2026.