One Trump Post = Trillions Moved...War or Peace??

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Welcome back! Today we’re breaking down a wild mix of geopolitics 🌍, energy markets 🛢️, biofuels policy 🌽, and key ag fundamentals 🌾👇

🛢️ Oil Market Whiplash

Oil prices dropped sharply Monday as optimism grew that the Iran conflict could cool off. WTI crude plunged more than 10%, hitting its lowest level in nearly two weeks after President Trump signaled progress in talks and ordered a temporary pause on strikes. That said, the situation remains volatile—Iran denies direct talks, and attacks in the region continue. Bottom line: headlines are still driving massive swings in energy and commodity markets.

🌽 Biofuels Policy Incoming

The Trump administration is expected to roll out new biofuel blending quotas by month-end, likely tied to Friday’s White House agriculture event. EPA head Lee Zeldin confirmed updated Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) requirements are coming soon, with more rulemaking to follow. Key issues include diesel volumes, RIN values, and blending mandates—plus ongoing debate over year-round E15. This is a big one for corn demand and ethanol margins.

🌾 Wheat Weather Watch

HRW wheat areas across the Plains remain dry, with little relief expected over the next 10 days. Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, and the southern Plains are all under pressure, though longer-range models hint at rain returning. Current Kansas ratings sit at 46% good/excellent and 19% poor/very poor. Weather risk is building—but forecasts beyond a week are always shaky.

🚢 Strong Export Demand

US export activity was solid last week:

Corn shipments hit 1.7 mmt (strong vs. last year)
Soybeans came in at 1.1 mmt, with China taking 60%
Wheat exceeded expectations at 458k mt

Demand continues to hold up well, especially on the corn and soybean side.

🐖 China Demand Concerns

China’s hog sector is under serious pressure. Pork prices have collapsed to multi-year lows, and producer margins are shrinking fast. Weak consumer demand and rising feed costs are forcing Beijing to step in—cutting herd sizes and buying pork for reserves. This has major implications for global feed demand, especially soymeal.

🇧🇷 Brazil Harvest Update

Brazil’s soybean harvest is lagging, now at 68% complete vs. 80% last year. Dry weather helped recently, but rains are coming back into the forecast. Meanwhile, second crop corn planting is nearly finished at 97%. Timing and logistics here remain critical for global supply flows.

⚡ Flash Sales

USDA confirmed fresh demand:

102,000 mt of corn sold to Mexico (new crop)
161,120 mt of soybeans sold to Mexico (new crop)

Steady demand continues to show up on the daily wire.

👍 If you’re in agriculture, these moving pieces matter—energy, policy, weather, and global demand are all tightly connected right now.

Transcript

Trump and Markets

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Good morning, everybody. It's Tuesday, March 24th, 523 a.m. Central Time. Grain markets are mixed this morning. May Corn Futures up two and a quarter at 461 and three quarters. May soybeans down three and a quarter at 11.60 and a quarter. May Chicago wheat up two and a half cents at 590 and a quarter. May Kansas City wheat up three and three quarters at 607. May Spring wheat up four cents at 631. Where else would we start today but Trump and the crude oil market?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

So oil prices tumbled yesterday amid growing optimism that the war may be nearing an end. WTI crude declined more than 10% to settle at 8813 per barrel, its lowest close in nearly two weeks. The sell-off followed President Trump announcing the U.S. had held productive talks with Iran regarding a potential resolution to the conflict. He also ordered a five-day pause on strikes against key Iranian energy infrastructure, marking a notable shift from his weekend threat to attack Iran's power facilities if the Strait of Hormuz was not reopened within 48 hours. Meanwhile, Iranian state media reported that Tehran had not been in communication with Washington regarding efforts to end the war.

Forthcoming RVO Numbers

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Which way is he going to go today? Is he today? Today he's going to want to fight or he's going to want peace today. I don't know. Let's go to the truth social post. Um he said yesterday, this was of course Mackenzie, like right after we taped yesterday. So our whole show was irrelevant because the president put this out, whatever. We don't matter, anyways. But uh he said, I am pleased to report that the United States of America and the country of Iran have had over the last two days very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East based on the tenor and tone of these in-depth, detailed, and constructive conversations, which will continue throughout the week. I have instructed the Department of War to postpone any and all military strikes against Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for a five-day period, subject to the success of the ongoing meetings and discussion. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I'm not sure that one person, I mean, he does, but I'm not sure that one person should have this much power over financial markets. Because when Trump posted that, the stock market added two trillion dollars in market cap. And that's not, you're not even talking about commodities or credit markets. I mean, you're talking trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars just sloshing around on the whims of the president. And I mean, this happens when you have geopolitical events, markets move. But just the back and forth and in tone from Trump just in a three or four-day period is really kind of unprecedented. So when the uh Truth Social Post was sent out, crude oil collapsed, traded like 12 bucks lower at one point. It finished$10 lower or 10.28% lower yesterday. And this uh for the grain markets was the only thing that mattered. It was the only thing that mattered. And I think that yesterday's um action and trade is evidence that a lot of the fundamental stuff that we talk about and other people talk about, whether it's you know, acreage or supply and demand or whatever, nah, throw throw it in the trash. It don't matter. It's it's just it's just Iran and crude oil. It's all we're trading. So corn futures were higher and uh were about to make some new highs prior to the uh truth social post and then backed off. Still looks like a constructive chart to me, I would probably argue. Uh soybean futures actually finished the day higher yesterday, and it's because of the next story that we're gonna talk about. We'll get into that in a second. Uh, wheat futures backed off following the uh Truth Social Post and then did recover late in the day. It could have been worse. Maybe some trend support here in the six dollar area. We're gonna talk about some winter wheat weather here in a second. Uh so this morning, the idea of de-escalation has backed off just a little bit. Crude oil's up a buck eighty this morning. Um we've got the stock market off just a little bit. As Mackenzie mentioned, Iran came out and said we didn't talk to Trump. And and maybe that's maybe that's strategy on their part in in some way, shape, or form. I don't know. Iran confirmed that they talked to some mediators in Turkey or Egypt or something like that. But um we have some kind of conflicting reports, I guess. Our crude's still way off where it peaked yesterday. So I guess the market believes, at least for now, that maybe there's some de-escalation or at least chance. Uh, we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Yesterday, EPA administrator Lee Zeldon said the agency will release new biofuel blending quotas by the end of the month. The announcement will likely coincide with the celebration of agriculture at the White House this coming Friday. He added that the EPA will quickly begin work on the next set of rules to provide more certainty for the biofuels industry. Zeldin also noted that Congress is still considering legislation that would allow year-round nationwide sales of E15.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

And you'll be attending the celebration of agriculture Friday, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Yes, I will be there.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Who will you be wearing? Carhartt, Dickies, or are you gonna go with like the uh the like suit and cowboy hat look? Or like what are you gonna go with?

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Probably car heart. That's kind of my go-to.

US Wheat Rains?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah, okay. You're gonna go with the casual, casual blue collar, like a hard worker type look. Um, so this is the 999th time we've traded the RVO headlines, but it um this this news in particular helped to move the soybean market a little bit higher intraday yesterday. So it could have been worse, and the bean market is the one that acted the best. So Friday is the celebration of agriculture, and perhaps we see the RVO numbers, which have already been leaked, apparently, and they're positive. But we keep trading them over and over and over again. Um, but I I think it's good news, generally speaking.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

U.S. HRW wheat country is likely to remain dry for another 10 days. This morning's Euro and GFS models offer little to no rainfall, little to no rainfall for key areas of Kansas, southern Nebraska, eastern Colorado, or the Texas-Oklahoma panhandle area during the next week. Both models, however, suggest that rains will return during the extended period. Weather forecasts, of course, become less reliable the further into the future they attempt to forecast.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Yes, they do. And I have trouble, I have trouble figuring out how the wheat market feels about this because it's all been clouded by the Iran crude oil situation. So yesterday the market was up and early in the day, very early in the day when we were taping. And uh I thought to myself, well, you know, crude's up, but also we've got maybe some weather issues in the southern plains, and maybe HRW wheat leads the way. And then Trump comes out with the uh Iran stuff and we just fall apart. So the next 10 days, whether you look at the Euro or the GFS, I put both of them in here. Um, there's really not much rain at all for the Southern Plains, which is our big winter wheat uh area for the HRW crop and just in general. Now you go out through this like 10 to 15 or 10 to 16 day period, and yeah, there's some rains that return. How reliable is this? I don't really know. The state of Kansas and a couple other states were out with crop progress uh and conditioned ratings yesterday. The Kansas winter wheat crop was rated 46% good to excellent and 19% poor to very poor. I'm not quite sure how that lines up historically. I'm sure there are years that have been better. It's not a great rating by any means. USDA will start to release national uh winter wheat ratings first week or second week in April. But in any case, I do think that there is or should be some weather concern with regard to the winter wheat crop in the southern plains. It's just very difficult to get the market's take on this because of everything that's going on in the outside world.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

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?

Grain Shipments

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Shay interviewed me yesterday in our premium video, which is like um kind of a a flip-flop because usually I do the interviewing these days. I used to do a lot of interviews, but anyway, Shay um ran through, he pulled all of my data that we send out to premium subscribers with regard to grain sales and what I've advised over the last several years. And he like did a whole bunch of analysis of it and asked me about it. It was kind of interesting. Like, Joe, this is how you advise grain sales. This is when you sell the most seasonally. There were a lot of like nuanced items though that we had to explain. So this is like a 35-minute video. But if you want to know how I think about grain marketing and how I why I think it should be simplified and that sort of stuff, this was this was, I don't know. I thought it was cool. We had a lot of positive uh feedback on this one. On Friday, Jim Urio, who is a professional interest rate trader, was on and talked to us about interest rates, Iran, inflation prospects, uh, even the grain markets. He has some opinions there. And I personally love when people outside of the um ag commodity space talk about our ag markets because sometimes it's like the 30,000-foot view where we're too close sometimes, and maybe we get too much into the nitty-gritty of things. Um, Jim is fantastic, he is a fan favorite. Uh today, Pete Meyer's gonna be on and we're gonna talk about Iran and crude oil and acres and fertilizer and all of that stuff. If you 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. No other fee, no other obligation, nobody will try to sell you anything else. Um, just a ton of content from us every single business day, guys. We pump out a new premium video every single day. Morning email goes out at 5 a.m. Central Time. Best way to start your day. Well, if the markets are down, maybe it's the worst way, but it's it's a it's a way to start your day. We'll put it that way. Uh what's up next?

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Uh U.S. corn shipments were strong last week. USDA reported that 67 million bushels of corn were inspected for export during the week ending March 19th. The print was up 1.8% compared to the prior week and up 9.8% versus the same week last year. Soybean shipments were near the upper end of pre-report expectations at 40 million bushels. The print was up 12% compared to the previous week and up 32% versus the same week last year. China accounted for 60% of the week's inspections. Week shipments surpassed expectations at 17 million bushels. The print was up 33% from the previous week, but down 5.5% from the same week last year.

China Hog Problems, Soybeans??

SPEAKER_00 9:32

I'll say that this is mostly good news. So corn shipments are still elevated seasonally, not record strong, but still very strong. Accumulated corn shipments out of the United States are up 30% year over year. And we are we are shipping what we've sold. So there's, I don't think there's going to be a whole bunch of cancellations or anything like that. I think that USDA is probably close to reality with its projections, if not too low. In soybeans, uh, we are shipping the soybeans to China, as McKenzie mentioned. The problem now, and it it's I don't know if it's a problem, but I just don't know or think that China's coming in for any more old crop U.S. soybeans. I think any day now you could see uh something for new crop if you but if they're gonna commit to this 25 million for the new crop marketing year, because they would they would start buying new crop beans typically like you know, it could be March, April, May. It's been later and later in recent years, but they would they would start, of course, before the crop is harvested. They'll start buying new crop, you know, this time of year. So we'd love to see some of that. That's an elevated shipment number versus normal, but it's not it's not crazy elevated, I wouldn't say. But I'd say all is all is well here for the most part.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

China's hog industry continues to struggle amid weak demand and rising costs. Pig prices have recently fallen to their lowest level in at least 15 years, while producer margins have dropped to a four-year low. Domestic pork consumption has remained weak amid sluggish post-pandemic economic growth. And at the same time, producers are facing rising feed costs as prices for soybean meal and corn have increased due to supply disruptions tied to the conflict over in the Middle East. In response, Beijing is once again urging producers to reduce sow numbers and slaughter rates to better align with supply and demand. And the government is also purchasing frozen pork for state reserves to help support the market.

Brazil Harvest

SPEAKER_00 11:18

So, according to the data that Bloomberg provided, hog margins in China haven't been profitable since the start of 2025. So you're talking 15, 16 months here. Um, this the question for our crowd here, I think, is how does this affect soybean demand? Like if there's really going to be this reduction in hog numbers or the herd or demand, is that a problem? Uh USDA's office in China had a soybean import projection for new crop out uh just last week. And they're calling it 108 million metric tons, which would be up from their projection for the current marketing year of uh, I think 106. And their numbers are different than the WASDI numbers. I wish they would get together and talk about this because the uh WASDI numbers was the WASDI number for this year is 112. So there's like a what is it, a 6 million metric ton difference? In any case, um, when you go back to that post, they don't really talk much for the the post in China. They don't really talk at all, I don't think, about the hog numbers. They say, hey, we're gonna see uh moderate growth in soybean demand. So I guess that um you know you need to keep an eye on the hog situation, but the uh USDA office in China does not see it as being problematic.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

The Brazilian soybean harvest continues to lag behind last year's pace, according to well-followed private group Ag Rural. As of last Thursday, 68% of the crop had been harvested compared to 80% last year at this time. Recent dry weather has aided harvest over the last week, while a large portion of Brazil is forecast to receive rain in the near term. AgRural also reported that Brazil's second corn crop planting is 97% complete compared with 100% complete at the same time last year.

Flash Sales

SPEAKER_00 12:51

I think the Brazil big crop story is old news. I think it has been for a while. I don't think the slower harvest pace has had much of an impact on the markets whatsoever. Uh, Brazil's gonna have a lot of cheap soybeans, and uh I think it's for that reason that China's probably not gonna be interested in additional old crop U.S. soybeans. I hope I'm wrong about that. I'd love to see them buy it. I just I don't know that they will, and a lot of the language that we've seen recently suggests that they won't.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

We had a couple flash sales yesterday. U.S. exporters sold four million bushels of corn and six million bushels of soybeans to Mexico for delivery during the current marketing year.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Mexico's been about our best customer with regard to a lot of things, and uh that should continue, I believe. What did cattle do yesterday?

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Cattle futures were higher yesterday. Live cattle were 32 cents to a buck 25 higher, with the exception of the backmoth contract, which lost 37 cents. Feeders saw gains ranging from 70 cents up to 237. Box beef prices were mixed. Choice was down 98 cents at 399.13, while select was up 89 cents at 393.83.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Outside markets pretty tame today relative to yesterday. Now, who knows what Trump's gonna say five minutes from now, you know. But yeah, in any case, the SP is only down 10 points, which is close to unchanged. The US dollar's up a little bit. Crude oil is up a dollar ninety five in the May WTI at 90 oh four. Again, it was down ten dollars yesterday, so just a modest recovery. Have a uh great day, guys. We'll be back on Wednesday.