It’s been said that February is the longest shortest month of the year. If so, it might be because freezing, snowy January often feels like the longest long month of the year.
That’s true this year when almost every day in January brought market-rattling threats or actions by the White House to U.S. trading partners and alliances around the world.
Bypassed by the headline-grabbing action, however, were just-as-important stories and events that will impact U.S. farmers and ranchers as much as anything done by the White House so far this year.
Like the stunning news that China, the White House’s biggest tariff punching bag last year, purchased its promised 12 million metric tons (mmt) of U.S. soybeans more than 45 days ahead of its agreed-upon deadline.
That’s 441 million bu. — or almost 10.5% of the entire 2025 U.S. soybean crop — bought and booked for export in just over two months.
Equally stunning is that every bushel was purchased without moving, bargain-basement U.S. soybean prices of more than $1.50 per bu. higher over the short buying period. In fact, even before China’s mid-January announcement that its buying was over, March soybean futures had already sagged to within 30 cents of their contract lows.
China’s quick, cheap purchases support two, longheld beliefs about how it operates in foreign markets. First, few nations fill their import needs at cheaper prices than China.
Second, China rarely tips its hand until the game is over.
For example, shortly after quietly completing its American bean buys, Bloomberg reported that China — just as quickly and even more quietly — bought “25 cargoes” from Brazil. Because of those massive additional South American purchases, “Traders do not expect further U.S. bookings.”
Which only amplifies the fact that trade actions taken by the Trump administration against China — like the average 40% import tariff imposed last year — hasn’t dented its export-direct economy. Indeed, China’s 2025 trade surplus set a record, a staggering $1.2 trillion.
So far, that’s a mind-bending $2 trillion better than the U.S. In fact, Dow Jones noted Jan. 8, “In the first 10 months of 2025, the [U.S] trade deficit totaled $782.8 billion, up 8% from $726.8 billion in the first 10 months of 2024.”
An on-the-farm view shows a similar disconnect between President Trump’s tariffs and economic reality. According to January research made public by North Dakota State University, farmers got nicked by 2025 fertilizer prices that may have used Trump tariffs to mask huge price increases. Here’s how AgWeb reported their actions:
“The report noted the effective rate on DAP [diammonium phosphate] imports was approximately 8% of the import value, while year-over-year spot price analysis shows the differential between U.S. and Canadian spot prices rose by $187 per metric ton … That’s equivalent to a 342% pass-through rate when measured against the 8% tariff. At the retail level, the pass-through rate was lower at 156%, but still exceeded 100%.”
At least “at the retail level, the pass-through rate” was only 156% rather than the even unbelievable 342% “when measured against 8% tariff.”
And now, with another long February looms before U.S. farmers and ranchers, the White House is again stoking the tariff train, reported Bloomberg Jan. 27: “Trump threatened to hike duties on South Korean goods to 25%.”
“Meanwhile,” it added, “India and the EU… signed a trade agreement… as the world presses on.”
If American ag policy is built on foreign trade, it can’t have a trade representative — in this case, the president of the United States — whose entire foreign policy is built on gut-busting tariffs.
(The Farm and Food File is published weekly throughout the U.S. and Canada. Contact information is posted at farmandfoodfile.com. © 2026 ag comm)
