By Ben Westcott and Pyotr Kozlov
An agreement on U.S. agricultural sales to China outlined by the White House is raising optimism for a pickup beyond soybeans, further reviving crop flows that have been weighed down by trade tensions.
The country has agreed to buy at least $17 billion annually in American agricultural produce through 2028, according to a fact sheet posted Sunday by the White House following U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing. It said that would be in addition to a soybean purchase pledge from late 2025, when Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping initially met in a bid to ease the rift between the two sides.
Most-active corn futures rose as much as 3.8% on Monday, the biggest intraday gain in six months, while wheat gained as much as 3.4%. Soybeans and cotton were also higher. China is one of the world’s largest agricultural importers and the moves mark a reversal from last week, when crop prices plunged on a lack of detail over farm-good purchases during the summit.
“The White House dropped the headline that the bulls were looking for on Friday,” said Joe Davis, a director of commodities at brokerage Futures International in Illinois.
Over the weekend, China’s Ministry of Commerce had said Beijing and Washington will adopt a series of measures, including mutually cutting levies on certain products, to expand bilateral trade in areas including agriculture, without giving more specifics. The ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the agricultural pledge outlined by the White House.
The U.S. announcement appears particularly bullish for wheat and corn futures given the purchases will come on top of the initial soybean deal and likely spread into other agricultural products, Davis said. The White House also said China has restored market access for U.S. beef by renewing export registrations for more than 400 facilities and adding new listings.
The Asian nation, the top U.S. soybean export customer, had held off on purchases for much of 2025 amid a broader trade dispute between the nations. That changed as the sides reached a truce during an October summit between Trump and Xi in South Korea.
China met an initial 12-million metric ton soybean purchase pledge in the months after and the White House said the country had agreed to buy at least 25 million tons annually through 2028 — a figure Beijing has never confirmed. The pact reached after last week’s meetings appears to build on that foundation, even as the scope of farm products involved remains unclear.
A resumption in Chinese imports of U.S. corn would break a roughly two-year lull in significant purchases, U.S. Department of Agriculture figures show.While still well below past peaks, China’s corn imports through April from all origins are up more than 80% from last year. Heavy rains in the north last year had disrupted the harvest and caused some crop damage.
Chinese buyers returned for U.S. wheat after Trump and Xi’s 2025 summit, but purchases have remained at limited levels. Sorghum sales, meanwhile, have held at a steady pace.
Still, traders were hopeful that the latest summit would produce a comprehensive deal and had priced in a more significant outcome than what the U.S. administration announced, said Chris Nikolaou, general manager at Advantage Grain. The White House said the $17-billion trade figure would be prorated for 2026 agricultural purchases.
Data released Monday also pointed to slowing Chinese economic growth, which could weigh on agricultural demand. And crop markets remain disrupted by the fuel and fertilizer price spikes from the war in the Middle East, which is raising input costs for producers globally.
Corn futures last week fell the most in four months. Prices for the crop — as well as wheat and soybeans — remain below recent highs.
“We’ve still got the same backdrop we had last week,” Nikolaou said. “The Strait of Hormuz is closed, the Iran conflict continues.”
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