In the past few days, Argentina has made a big move.
More than a week ago, Argentina announced the abolition of export tariffs on cereals, a policy that was followed by a fierce market reaction, especially soybeans, and a surge in sales overnight.
After the policy was announced, Chinese buyers ordered at least 20 vessels (1.3 million tons) of soybeans from Argentina.
In this regard, Argentina is supposed to be a happy ocean, and Urumane from La Pampa Province said, “This is a good news, the policy is not permanent, but at least has brought us considerable profits.”
For the Argentine government, the move also addressed the “burning urgency”, with a grain brokerage company in the country predicting that the new policy would bring billions of foreign exchange revenues to Argentina.
However, compared with Argentina's beaming, the United States is worried about the problem of unsalable soybeans at this time. For this reason, Trump is still focusing on this matter and posting a long article "complaining" on social media.
Therefore, the skyrocketing soybean sales in Argentina naturally made the United States very dissatisfied. U.S. Treasury Secretary Bescent said with great anger that Argentina was "backstabbing" the United States.
On the one hand, Besent is so angry because the United States is considering ways to help Argentina get out of its economic difficulties by purchasing bonds and expanding currency swap lines.
On the other hand, they are naturally envious of the fact that Argentina's soybeans are selling too well.
If in the past, that is, in the case of good U.S. soybeans sales, Argentina sold some soybeans to China, but now anyone knows, as the largest customer of U.S. soybeans, China so far has not bought a single grain of U.S. soybeans.
This is the season of American soybean harvest.
Moreover, according to the data of the General Administration of Customs of China from 1st to 8th of the year 2025, China has already imported 7,331 million tons of soybeans this year, while the total amount and ceiling of annual procurement is 100 million tons.
This means that China currently only has about 26 million tons of soybean procurement targets left.
Because of this, the current trouble facing U.S. soybeans has reached the point of burning eyebrows, and U.S. soybean growers are more hasty like ants on the hot pot.
However, unlike Bessent’s extreme discontent, the American Bean Farm was not blamed on Argentina, much less accusing Argentina of “growing the wall.”
Following the one-night rise in soybean sales in Argentina, President Lagrange of the American Soybean Association (ASA) responded quickly, telling the media that most U.S. soybean growers knew that the root of the problem was not how much soybeans Argentina sold to China, but the U.S. tariffs.
Raglan believes that it is the U.S. tariffs that have caused Argentina to seize part of the share that originally belonged to U.S. soybean farmers. Judging from the sales of Argentine soybeans, China is obviously still a "big customer," but this big customer that once belonged to the United States now does not even buy a single bean from the United States.
“This feeling of frustration makes me feel very depressed.”
Lastly, Lagrange noted that the most concerned U.S. bean farmers are now not how many ships Argentina has sold to China, how many tons of soybeans, but the newspaper reports that the U.S. has a trade agreement with China.
“American farmers and the soybean association are calling for negotiations to prioritize a soybean deal with China.”
The words of Lagrange revealed deep anxiety, because he was too clear that the American farmers could not wait, nor could they wait any longer, this year's soybeans had already begun to harvest, but the sale has not yet landed, and so on, that injured, is not one or two farmers.
And for the trouble of U.S. bean farming, as President Trump is not unclear, local time on October 1, he mentioned on social media, plans to take a portion of the tariffs, used to subsidize and help bean farming through the difficulty.
According to the common rule, since Trump's speech to subsidize, it should be a good thing for U.S. bean farmers, but to this, U.S. bean farmers reacted smoothly.
On the one hand, Trump did not disclose how much financial subsidies he would provide and how the funds would be distributed, so for American soybean farmers, all this is unknown.
On the other hand, what American soybean farmers really want is not subsidies, but the huge market of China.
According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, from 2015 to 2024, although U.S. soybeans are also exported to other countries, it is absolutely impossible to compare with Chinese purchases.
Taking 2022 as an example, the amount of U.S. soybeans purchased by China accounted for more than 50% of the total U.S. soybean exports that year.
This means that other countries are combined and there is not much China buys, so in terms of U.S. soybeans, the Chinese market is irreplaceable.
In this case, the minor is obvious.
The reason for this is that the American bean farmers are also very clear, after all, saving a lifetime is not a lifetime, and the huge Chinese market is the key to their settlement.
And once this market is lost, even Trump’s promise of subsidies cannot make up for that loss.
At the same time, Argentina's soybean "stamina" is still very strong. Previously, Argentina's soybean production declined due to drought, but after 2024, the output began to gradually recover. Currently, grain harvests including soybeans are abundant. According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, Argentina's soybean exports still amount to 20 million tons.
Therefore, what Argentina needs to do next is to make persistent efforts after making a "good start" and do business with China with heart. In that case, there will be a great opportunity to increase its market share in China.
As for China, with its own Brazilian soybeans, coupled with Argentina as a "rising star", there is basically no big problem in meeting the demand of the entire market.
This means that the impact of American soybeans on China will be further weakened and become increasingly minimal.
And this is one of the confidences at the negotiating table. In fact, similar to this kind of action, China has been laying out. It is one successor after another that keeps us in the active position at the negotiating table.