US and Brazil fight for China's giant soybean market as trade war reshapes flows
The United States and Brazil are locked in direct competition for China's $70 billion-a-year soybean import market. China has shifted more than 80% of its soybean buying to Brazil in 2026 amid renewed US-China trade tensions, while Washington is trying to derail a seven-year supply deal Brasília signed with Beijing.
China traditionally absorbs more than half of the world's soybean trade, and the market is worth roughly $70 billion a year in 2026. According to CNBC, after the Trump administration raised tariffs on Beijing, China sourced 78 million tonnes of its 95-million-tonne first-half soybean imports from Brazil. For US soy farmers, that is the steepest market-share loss in a decade; producer prices in Iowa and Illinois have fallen by 22%.
On the Brazilian side, investment has accelerated. Soybean acreage in Mato Grosso state grew 6% versus last year, and two new export terminals are under construction at the ports of Santos and Paranaguá, due online in October. Brazil's Agriculture Minister Carlos Fávaro told CNBC « this is not just a cyclical shift, it is a deepening of our structural position in the Chinese market ». In March, Brazil signed a seven-year framework agreement with COFCO providing for up to 38 million tonnes of soybeans per year.
US counter-moves are on the table. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said she is weighing new surveillance measures on Brazilian-origin soy and WTO complaint options against « market-distorting practices ». American Soybean Association president Caleb Ragland warned « losing the China market means a permanent erosion of Midwest farm income ». In Chicago, November soybean futures fell 1.4% on Tuesday ahead of Thursday's USDA crop report.
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