Trump "May Delay" China Meeting, Soybeans TANK

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🌾 Grain Markets & Policy Update

President Trump told the Financial Times he “may delay” a summit with Xi Jinping amid the Strait of Hormuz closure. Trade talks between U.S. and Chinese officials continued this weekend, and China reiterated its commitment to 25 mmt of U.S. soybean purchases annually for the next three years, though soybeans fell early Monday after comments about “non-soybean row crops.”

📊 Fund Positioning (CFTC)
Speculative money continues to pile into ag markets. Funds bought 147k corn contracts, pushing the net long to the largest since March 2025. Funds also added to soybeans and SRW wheat, and private estimates suggest funds may have been record net long soybeans by Friday’s close.

🌾 Wheat Weather Concerns
Chicago wheat rallied Friday on fund buying, higher crude oil, and drought concerns across the Plains. Forecasts show little rainfall in HRW regions over the next two weeks while cold temperatures threaten SRW areas this week.

🇧🇷 Brazil Soybean Harvest
Brazil’s harvest is about 57% complete, behind last year but near the five-year average. Conab trimmed its crop estimate slightly to 177.85 mmt, still a record, citing excessive rain and uneven weather.

🧪 Fertilizer Market Developments
The U.S. approved Venezuelan fertilizer sales to help offset disruptions tied to the Iran conflict and the Strait of Hormuz closure. Despite the move, analysts say limited capacity means little short-term relief, with NOLA urea already up sharply.

🏛️ Policy & Farmer Relief
Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins says the administration is exploring multiple options to reduce fertilizer costs and acknowledged that additional farmer aid remains on the table if conditions worsen.

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Transcript

Fires and Tornados

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Morning, everybody. It's Monday, March 16th, 5 24 a.m. Central Time. Grain markets are lower to sharply lower this morning. May corn future is down four and three quarters at 462 and a half. May soybeans down 30 and 3 quarters at 11.94 and a half. May Chicago wheat down eight and a half cents at 605 and a quarter. May Kansas City wheat down three and a half at 626 and a half. May Spring wheat down six at 639 and a half. Mackenzie, we've got all sorts of like uh weather and natural disaster type stuff around the country. You had fires out in your neighborhood, Nebraska, correct?

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Yeah, we sure did. They started back on Thursday. We had one to the south of us. Um it was about 15, 20 miles away. I believe it burned about 35,000 acres. And then there's a terrible, terrible one out in the western part of the state. It's burned over half a million acres. Absolutely devastating what is happening in our state. And then there's another one south by 80. They've just been all over, really.

Trump "May Delay" Meeting

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Yeah, it's really messy. And then we had this huge storm go across like the whole band of the United States uh yesterday. I, for one, me and the kids, the whole family, we were hunkered down in the tornado shelter about 11 o'clock last night because we had some nasty stuff roll through. I think they said the winds were up to like 70, but I didn't, I wasn't made aware of any tornadoes, a touchdown or anything. Um, with that, let's start off the show this morning. Uh, we've got China in the news.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

So, President Trump told the Financial Times on Sunday that he may delay his critical summit with Xi Jinping. The comments come amid the Strait of Hormuz closure, leading some to speculate that Trump would like China to take an active role in its reopening. Meanwhile, Scott Bessett and Jameson Greer met with their Chinese counterparts over the weekend, with that meeting continuing into today. Reuters reported following the Sunday meeting that China showed openness to additional purchases of U.S. agricultural goods, including poultry, beef, and non-soybean row crops. Sources also said that China remains uh committed to buying 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans for each of the next three years.

"The Funds" LOVE Corn

SPEAKER_01 2:05

All right. So you want to know why our soybeans are down 30 cents this morning? It's because Trump said he may delay this meeting. And I think that that comment very clearly has something to do with the Iran situation. He wants China to come to the assistance of the U.S. and the Allies with regard to the Strait of Hormuz in some way, shape, or form. And whether or not that happens, I don't know. So that that comment alone, Trump, we may delay this meeting. That's enough to send soybeans 30 cents lower. The other comment in the Reuters piece that was less advertised was this um quote regarding non-soybean row crops. China's interested in in perhaps more U.S. ag purchases, including poultry beef and non-soybean row crops. So I think what that means is that for this current marketing year, where we've sold 11 million metric tons of soybeans to China out of the U.S. officially, they're not buying anymore. I don't think they're going up to 20 million, like Trump had suggested. And that's perhaps an additionally bearish item. Now, China did say, yeah, hey, we're still interested in that 25 million per year each of the next three years. And that's positive news. But I think just the May delay quote is enough to send the market 30 cents lower, especially after the strength that we've seen. And then you throw in this non-soybean row crop quote, and that's additional fuel to the fire here. I wonder what non-soybean row crop. Does that mean they're going to buy corn? Does it mean they're going to buy sorghum? They've already bought some. Um, good question. I don't know, but uh that's probably your biggest kind of ag related story uh to start the day.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

The CFTC released its weekly commitment of traders report on Friday for the weekending Tuesday, March 10th. Large money managers were net buyers of 147,000 corn contracts. The net long position of 199,000 corn contracts is the largest since March 2025. The funds were also net buyers of 24,000 soybean contracts. The net long position of 211,000 soybean contracts is the largest since early December 2025. And then lastly, the funds were net buyers of 4,000 SRW week contracts on the week.

US Wheat Weather Problems

SPEAKER_01 4:03

That was the fourth largest week of fund buying in the corn market on record. So um very, very, very aggressive in real time or call it at Friday's close. It is very possible that the funds were record that long the soybean market. It's very likely that the funds were long. 220,000 contracts of corn at Friday's close, and the uh short covering in the Chicago wheat market continues. I'll show you guys this chart this morning. Uh premium subs, you guys have full versions of the fund tracker charts in your email this morning. This is CFTC managed net position. So this is the net position of the funds. Corn plus soybeans plus SRW wheat. Funds are net long. Uh, when you combine all those three, 389,000 contracts. The record in in this particular data set was 2012 when the funds were net long, 626,000 contracts. So there is still, could be still, some uh room to go here with regard to fund buying. They're not really at an extreme. You're at an extreme in the soybean market in corn and certainly in wheat, uh, you are not at an extreme. One of the things that is driving all of this, and and I think this is the main thing, is the rally in crude oil. And I threw this together this morning. This is your crude and corn uh chart overlaid dating back to 2005. And very often, as you can see, uh, where uh I've got some circles here. If crude's at 100 bucks or above, corn prices typically are not at 460. Corn prices are typically at much higher levels, and that's not a rule. You've got that uh little period in like 2013, 2014 where crude was 100 and corn was on its way back down. But in uh the majority of instances over the last 20 years, if crude's at 100 or higher, you're gonna see corn at, you know, six bucks, seven bucks. And the funds know this, and that's why they're buying corn. I don't think it has anything to do with fundamentals, I don't think it has anything to do with USDA balance sheets. This is just simply a uh kind of commodity rotation play. Hey, we're buying commodities, crude's up, you know, that means that some of these grain uh contracts may be undervalued. So that is uh to the advantage of the U.S. farmer. Now keep this in mind. We had the fourth largest week of fund buying ever in the corn market. Did we see like a massive rally? Not really. And what that means is that somebody's taking the other side of that trade, somebody's selling it. And who's selling it? It's the U.S. farmer is selling it, and not the U.S. farmer necessarily selling futures contracts himself, but he's selling cash grain, physical grain to the commercial, the elevator, and uh they sell futures contracts, of course, to hedge their risk. So you're seeing a uh a massive, massive change in ownership structure here. Um, corn, old crop bushels, especially, probably moving away from the farmer and into the hands of the commercial and then end user. And some people might say that that's actually a friendly factor. You know, when the farmers own less, the market goes higher. A lot of people will tell you that, and they're correct to some extent.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Wheat futures were sharply higher on Friday with the Chicago May 26th contract gaining roughly 15 cents to settle near 614 per bushel. The rally was fueled by technical and fun buying, along with speculative buying tied to rising crude oil prices, drought concerns across the U.S. plains, and forecasts for colder temperatures, uh could for colder temperatures, excuse me, colder temperatures that could damage some crops also provided support. Uh concerns over higher fertilizer prices all also contributed to the rally. Corn futures ended the session higher, while soybeans finished lower.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Okay, so you look at U.S. HRW wheat areas, uh Kansas, um, eastern Colorado, panhandle area of Oklahoma, Texas, really no rain at all over the next 15 days. Then you look at US SRW wheat areas in the Midwest, and you're talking like single-digit temperatures in a lot of places on Tuesday morning. And that's why we had that nasty weather kind of brought this big cold front in, like in my neighborhood, Middle Tennessee. We were 74 degrees yesterday, and we're supposed to be a low of like 20, I think, tomorrow morning. And that's why we had this kind of tornado-y stuff floating around. So there is some concern about the wheat crop, both both SRW and HRW, as we uh move into spring here. Here is a July Kansas City wheat chart, and it's acting very well. The market's acting well, and the funds are still short. So, you know, there could be some additional short coveringslash speculative buying here. That's 658 and a half above this July HRW contract, is your big uh kind of line in the sand here. Here's May soybeans, and uh, we're down sharply this morning, as I mentioned, that old peak from back in November, about 1078, maybe your uh support level here if the selling pressure continues. Corn market's kind of flirting around with that old high back in November in the May contract, uh, which is 465. We saw a solid close above it Friday, which uh leads me to believe that perhaps a test of that uh high 476 is a possibility. So the markets are um are acting pretty well with the exception of soybeans this morning.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

If you guys have not checked out our premium content, you sure need to do so. Joe, can you tell our viewers about some of our recent premium videos?

Brazil Soybean Harvest

SPEAKER_01 8:51

A lot of grain marketing stuff last week. So Thursday last week, I laid out my plan and recommendation for new crop corn and soybeans. I uh broke down everything by crop, crop year, and percentage and told you exactly what I'm doing, exactly what I've done, what I've advised. These are uh simple cash sale recommendations. I throw a blueprint out to our premium crowd. Uh, we don't do fancy option strategies or we sell, we sell one bushel once and then we're done with it and we kind of move on. Um, I the video on Friday is something that every farmer needs to watch and understand. And a lot of there's a lot of people that don't understand the concept of capture and carry. So what I did was I did capturing new crop corn carry and carry targets. Um, now is probably not the time to capture carry in the new crop corn market based on what I showed you guys. I laid out all the mathematics, the full carry calculations, how all this stuff works, what you should be looking for specifically. When do I roll my December HTAs forward to March? When do I roll them forward to May? When do I roll them forward to July? Is it a good idea at all? Should I be selling versus March rather than uh D C26? Uh, these are all questions that you need to know the answer to. And I have the answers in that video. If you guys want to see the premium stuff, go to standardgrain.com. You can sign up this morning. This is a$50 per month subscription. You can cancel it anytime. Uh, there's no other fee, no other obligation, nobody tried to sell you anything else. We just pump out a ton of content every single day, guys. New premium video every single business day. If you are the decision maker in your farm operation, uh, this is something that you just have to have at this point. If you're all your neighbors are watching it. So if you're not watching this stuff, you you are behind. Um, give that deal a shot this morning, guys.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Brazil's soybean harvest is lagging behind last year's pace. According to Patria Agro Negocios, harvest is roughly 57% complete compared to 66% recorded at the same time last year. However, harvest is in line with the five-year average of roughly 58%. Meanwhile, CONAB slightly reduced its outlook for Brazil's soybean crop on Friday to 177.85 million metric tons. The estimate, however, still represents a record large crop. The reduction was attributed to excessive rainfall in Brazil's west, central, and southeastern regions, along with irregular weather conditions in the southern part of the country.

Venezuela Fertilizer

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Uh, dare to say this is all old news. Like the market, I think weeks and weeks and weeks ago was comfortable with the concept that this was going to be a monster crop. And I think we've kind of moved past it. Now, that does not change the fact that U.S. soybeans are overpriced on the export market to the tune of like a dollar per bushel or more. And I think that that kind of takes you back to what we talked about in the first story. China's probably not, based on those comments, which were from sources, China's probably not going to buy more old crop beans. I hope I'm wrong about that. I hope, I hope what Trump said is very much correct and that they come in and push this thing to 20 million for this year. But it just seems like with this sort of Brazilian supply out there, with those sort of lower prices that they have compared to the U.S., it would be a tall task uh to ask China to come and buy another 8 million tons of old crop beans. But you know what? They bought they bought a bunch of U.S. beans for college political purposes and they could do it against. I'm not gonna say it's impossible. I'm just gonna say, like, given what we learned over the weekend, it it appears a little bit less likely.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

The Trump administration has approved Venezuelan fertilizer sales to U.S. companies. The move comes as the Iran war has disrupted fertilizer exports moving through the Strait of Hormuz. Venezuela has significant but underutilized ammonia and urea capacity with annual production potential of about 2.7 million metric tons of ammonia and 3.3 million metric tons of urea. However, years of underinvestment have left the country's fertilizer facilities in need of upgrades before production can be ramped up. As a result, analysts say Venezuelan exports are likely or unlikely to have a meaningful short-term impact on the U.S. fertilizer market.

Fertilizer Price Solution?

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Yeah, I don't think this is gonna do much. Um, I pulled this old chart of fertilizer suppliers globally, and Venezuela is not even listed anywhere on here. So it's a nice idea, but I don't think this is gonna help to alleviate any of the price pressures that you guys have seen.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

According to Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins, the Trump administration is considering all available options to help reduce fertilizer costs. Rollins stated that the administration expects to announce potential solutions to address rising costs soon. She added that Trump is very aware of the challenges facing U.S. farmers and supports efforts to provide relief. Rollins also stated that the DOJ is continuing to look into rising farm input costs.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Brooke Rollins was asked at this interview where she's standing in front of the cattle guys. She was asked if if there is a second bailout being considered in addition to ECAP. And uh she said everything is on the table and we're looking at all avenues. There has been chatter about a secondary bailout package. And, you know, the markets, your corn, soybean, wheat markets, they've improved drastically, but input costs have risen drastically, especially as it relates to corn production with this nitrogen fertilizer situation. So um it's not like the farmers, not like the farmers killing it at all. I mean, we got a long way to go to get to even a situation that resembles profitability for a lot of people. What did cattle do on Friday?

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Cattle futures were mixed. Live cattle saw losses ranging from two cents down to 62 cents. Feeders were a buck 25 higher to 75 cents lower. Fat cattle trade was once again lower last week in Nebraska, Kansas, and the Western Corn Belt. Cattle were mostly$5 lower compared to the prior week at$235. And there was not enough trade to establish a trend in the Southern Plains.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

Got some movement in the outside markets. The SP is up 35 points. That's about half a percentage point. It has been under some pressure. The Dow's up 150, Treasury's up just a little bit, crude oil is down 84 cents in the April WTI at 97.89. So still holding together very well at elevated prices. Gold and silver are off. Uh, I'll call it sharply. Have a great day, guys. Have a great week. We'll be back on Tuesday.