For the first time in more than two decades, the United States did not export any soybeans in the month of October, the traditional start of the exporting season, to the world’s largest market, China.
October was also an unprecedented sixth consecutive month without any U.S. soybean exports to China in at least three decades, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data.
It matters. U.S. soybean farmers export about 55% of all soybeans they produce, whether as whole bean or “crushed” into meal form, which is the most common, or as oils, according to the U.S. Soybean Export Council.
Brazil, the world’s largest producer of the protein-rich legume that is largely used in meal form as feed for chickens, pigs and cows that humans then consume, registered its largest-ever shipment to China in August, at the tail end of its growing season.
U.S. soybean exports are one of the more visible signs of the trade war President Trump launched with China midway through his first term, when the U.S. deficit with the Asian manufacturing powerhouse was five times greater than with any other nation. But there are numerous others.
- China was the largest U.S. trade partner. Today, it ranks third.
- It will almost certainly have finished below 10% of U.S. trade for the first time in decades, when annual 2025 data is released next month.
- For decades, China was the largest U.S. importer. Now, it ranks third.
- Eight of the top 10 U.S. imports from China in 2018, when Trump first imposed tariffs on some $300 billion in U.S. imports, are down more than 50% today.
- For three months of the last five months last year, the largest U.S. deficit was not with China, whose deficit was five times that of any other country in 2018, but with Mexico.
The U.S. deficit, which dropped precipitously in October, will nevertheless, almost certainly have set a record when the annual data is released, what would be the fourth record in Trump’s five years in office.
And, U.S. soybean exports to China, which accounted for more than 50% of all exports for 10 of the last 17 years and more than 40% for another four of those years, are accounting for just 19% through October.
If China’s market share isn’t revealed to have grown, it would be the first year below 20% since at least 2003, the oldest U.S. Census Bureau data available.
All three of the last 17 years below 40% have been with Trump in the White House. During both his first term and second, the United States has spent billions of dollars to try to soften the blow to America’s soybean farmers.
Earlier this week, when I sought an interview with Jim Sutter, CEO of the U.S. Soybean Export Council, to talk about China and soybeans, he had just left Pakistan, now the ninth-largest buyer of U.S. soybeans, and was in Egypt, which now ranks third. He had also visited Saudi Arabia.
“Just departing Saudi today and optimistic about potential for U.S. soy in that market,” he emailed Friday of the country that currently ranks No.24. “Growing availability of meal in the U.S. – which is what Saudi imports these days – and strong relationship between the Kingdom and the U.S. ought to help our share grow.
“They seem to be a place where quality and sustainability are both something they are quite interested in,” he wrote.
“Global demand for soy continues to rise,” echoed the organization’s communications manager, Erin Worrell. “As populations and economies grow, more people are shifting into the middle class, and with that comes rising demand for animal protein like poultry, eggs, pork and fish. Soy is an essential part of meeting that need through feed rations for those animals.
“Sustainability is another area worth highlighting. U.S. soy has the lowest carbon footprint among major suppliers, and many countries and customers value that,” she wrote. “We are not increasing the amount of farmland in the U.S., but we are producing more with less.”
The export council, as are the farmers the association represents, 95% of whom are small farmers, all too familiar with the impact of the trade war with China on their exports – and their need for new buyers.
One of those countries is not as far afield. Just as the U.S. deficit with Mexico is now only slightly smaller than the U.S. deficit with China, so too is the market share of U.S. exports of soybeans.
Mexico, the world’s largest overall U.S. export and import partner, is now the second-largest buyer of U.S. soybeans, with 14.67% of the total. No country had been within 10 percentage points of China in more than two decades; the difference through October was 4.82 percentage points.
Since 2017, the year before China retaliated against tariffs on its U.S. imports by targeting soybeans, sales have slipped 70.27%, a loss equal to $5.821 billion. It left a big hole.
At the same time, by necessity, overall U.S. exports to the world, while down 19.11% and $2.99 billion, have grown in other markets.
Egypt is now the world’s third-largest buyer of U.S. soybeans, having cracked 10% market share for the first time in 2025. Through October, due to record imports of $1.42 billion, that percentage was 11.22%
Japan, Germany and Indonesia are all above 6%. Rounding out the top 10 are Taiwan, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam, all four with between 3% and 4% of U.S. exports.
The last three are all at record levels of market share, like Egypt.
Indonesia’s 6.03% is second only to the 2024 total while Germany’s 6.29% is second only to its 6.55% of all exports in 2023.
The hole left by China remains. Through the first 10 months of 2017, the top 10, largely due to China, accounted for 86.87% of the total. In 2025, the top 10 accounted for 78.95%.
“China is the largest importer in the world, unequivocally,” said Rosalind Leeck, a managing director at the U.S. Soybean Export Council. “But the rest of the world is growing. It’s a great opportunity throughout the rest of world. With China, the demand is still up but it’s increasing at a decreasing rate.”
U.S. exports to Egypt have grown 390.34% since 2017. Exports to Germany have doubled, up 103.79%. Exports to Vietnam are up 73.61%; to Pakistan, 46.32%; and to Bangladesh, 31.19%.
For the nation’s soybean farmers, many of them concentrated in the Midwestern states of Illinois and Iowa as well as Minnesota, Indiana and Nebraska, the expanding markets offer hope for their soybeans, which they generally rotate along with crops like corn, cotton and wheat.
The U.S.-China trade rupture has reshaped global soybean flows, forcing American farmers and exporters to cast a wider net. While China’s retreat has left an undeniable gap, new markets from Egypt to Mexico are helping fill it — not only diversifying demand but also strengthening strategic agricultural ties elsewhere. The era of dependence on a single dominant buyer may be giving way to something more resilient, even if the adjustment remains painful.
