The Impact of the U.S.-China Talks on Ag Markets

Our main focus today is reporting on the U.S.-China talks and the impact those talks will have on beef and commodity markets. We also look at a small slide in U.S. stocks. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello and welcome to Chat B DC. We've got your three news stories across ag business markets. Today is Monday, May 18th. Today we're going to focus on the impact of the U.S. China meeting on ag markets and a bit of a slide on Wall Street. So let's get to it. I'm going to start off with a report from Tyne Morgan on drovers. China has granted a five-year extension to hundreds of U.S. beef plant export registrations, marking the first major movement in months on a trade issue that it has constrained access to one of the most important overseas markets for American beef. According to a statement Friday from the U.S. Meat Export Federation, China's General Administration of Customs has extended registrations for 425 overdue U.S. beef establishments in China's CIFER system. In addition, 77 new U.S. beef establishment registrations have been added effective May 15th, with each valid for five years. However, 38 beef establishments remain suspended. Of those, 25 were previously expired and have now been administratively renewed, but they are still not eligible to export. The announcement adds a significant new development to a week of confusion and shifting signals around U.S. beef access to China. On Thursday, we reported on ChatBDC that China appeared to have renewed export registrations for hundreds of U.S. beef plants during high-level talks between President Trump and President Xi Jinping in Beijing, but those listings later reverted to expired on China's custom website with no official explanation, feeling uncertainty across the industry. But then as recently as Friday morning, there had been no clear confirmation that broad renewals were in place. The US MEF update now provides the most concrete indication yet that at least partial restoration of access is underway, even as some facilities remain blocked. More news on the U.S. China summit. The US United States expects China to sign up to buy double-digit billions worth of U.S. farm goods following the summit, says U.S. Trade Representative Jamison Greer. Greer noted that the 25 million metric ton per year soybean deal agreed to last October and said the U.S. also expects to see an agreement for double-digit billion purchases of agriculture products over the next three years per year committing coming out of this visit. And that's more general, that's aggregate, that's not soybeans, that's everything else, he said in an interview on Bloomberg television. Separately, Trump said in an interview aired on Thursday evening on Fox that China will buy a lot of our farm products. It wasn't immediately clear what products would be included and whether soybeans would be a part of the double-digit billion purchases, but traders and analysts said they expected the existing soybean commitment to be part of the deal, which alone would be worth more than $10 billion. Finishing up in financial markets, the U.S. stock market fell from its records Friday and joined a worldwide drop for stocks after high oil prices sent a shiver through the bond market. Stocks that had been caught up in the euphoria around artificial intelligence technology led the way lower. The SP 500 fell 1.2% from its all-time high set the day before. The Nasdaq composite sank one and a half percent at 1.5% from its own record. Technology stocks tumbled in a sharp turnaround from their meteoric rises for much of the year, which had carried markets worldwide to records, but also raised criticism that they had gone too far. Nvidia, the stock that quickly became the face of the AI revolution, dropped 4.4% and was the heaviest weight on the SP 500. It had come into the day with a gain of more than 26% for the year so far. Brian Jacobson, who was the chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management, said the strong corporate profits and durable U.S. economy that launched U.S. stocks to read records remain intact, but the path is unlikely to be smooth. Periods like this call for discipline more than hope, he says. Well, that's all for now. As always, thanks for tuning in to ChatBBC. If you found this useful, comment, subscribe, share, fellow your friend.