China retaliation on US farm goods hits soybeans bolstering Brazil

BEIJING/SINGAPORE – China’s retaliation on April 4 against new US tariffs is poised to accelerate Beijing’s move towards alternative suppliers for agricultural goods, including Brazil, a shift that began during the trade war of US President Donald Trump’s first term.

Beijing unveiled a slew of countermeasures, including additional duties of 34 per cent on all US goods, which are on top of the 10 per cent to 15 per cent tariffs placed on roughly US$21 billion (S$28.3 billion) worth of agricultural trade in early March.

“This is going to cost the US a lot of export business,” Mr Jack Scoville, vice-president of the Chicago-based Price Futures Group, said. “We’re pissing off everybody. That’s the problem. Where are we going to turn if we’ve slapped everybody with tariffs?”

The most active soya bean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade settled down by 34.5 US cents to US$9.77 a bushel, a 3.4 per cent decline from April 3 and its lowest price on a continuous chart for 2025.

“It is like shutting down all US agricultural imports. We are not sure if any imports will be viable with 34 per cent duty,” said a Singapore-based trader at an international trading company which sells grains and oilseeds to China.

A European grain trader said the European Union, which has also vowed to retaliate, was likely to put tariffs on US soya beans.

“It’s all about soya beans. A major concern is if there is no agreement before the new crop for US soya,” the trader said.

“As a big-picture conclusion, all this trade war is bearish US ags and bullish other-origin ags,” the trader said. The March levies have accelerated a pivot away from US soya bean imports and shifted demand to Brazil, where a bumper harvest puts it on track to