#来点儿干货#
According to the Observer Network, citing the official website of the United States Department of Agriculture on January 19, the daily update report on soybean sales shows that according to the data given by private U.S. exporters, the United States exported 297,000 tons of soybeans to China, and this transaction has not only become a "good start" for U.S. soybean exports to China this year, but also the first soybean transaction between China and the United States in the past month or so. The deal came just a day after senior officials from the U.S.-China agriculture ministries co-chaired the seventh meeting of the U.S.-China Joint Committee on Agriculture. It is worth mentioning that the website of the Ministry of Agriculture of the mainland reported on the meeting, especially emphasizing the need to "cherish, carefully care for, and stabilize the operation of this mechanism", and according to the statement issued by the United States Department of Agriculture, this is the first meeting of the mechanism since 2015.
On the one hand, the mechanism of the Sino-US high-level bilateral meeting on agriculture has been restarted after nine years, and on the other hand, the US soybean has finally broken the record of "zero sales" to China for more than a month. Such interaction has also led to speculation about whether high-level exchanges between China and the United States have begun to develop in the direction of "comprehensive icebreaking". From a practical point of view, such an analysis is reasonable, because the resumption of high-level interaction is one of the many agreements reached by the Chinese and American heads of state in San Francisco.
However, we must also be soberly aware that since the structural contradictions between China and the United States still exist, the speed of "recovery" is very limited. More importantly, when China and the United States talk about "easing relations" today, it is no longer a concession and compromise between one side and the other, but the coexistence of "détente" and "competition". First of all, China has not closed the door to peaceful coexistence with the United States, nor has it ever shown its willingness to "decouple" from the United States. On the contrary, the United States is deliberately trying to establish a set of so-called "de-China" supply chains and industrial chains.
Affected by this, China must take the necessary measures to protect its interests, so in the past few years, when the mainland purchases soybeans, a considerable part of the orders have been transferred to Brazil, Russia and other countries. As the world's largest soybean importer, the mainland's soybean imports have accounted for one-third of the world's soybean production, and about 60% of the global soybean trade. China's strategy has proven to be productive.
According to statistics released by the General Administration of Customs of the mainland, the total amount of soybeans imported by the mainland last year was 99.409 million tons, an increase of 11.4% over the same period. However, soybean imports from the United States were 20.2 million tonnes, significantly lower than the 27.2 million tonnes in the same period. On the one hand, the total import volume is rising, and on the other hand, the number of imports from the United States is falling, and the Biden administration, which sees all this, is naturally anxious, because 2024 coincides with the US election, and once the votes of agricultural states are lost, the probability of Trump's return to the White House will inevitably be greatly increased.
In particular, Brazil, which has become the world's largest producer and exporter of soybeans, has seen global soybean futures decline due to the significant improvement in crop weather over the past period, including soybean futures on the Chicago Board of Trade. Therefore, whether from a geopolitical or geoeconomic point of view, choosing to place an order for US soybeans at this time is extremely beneficial to the mainland.
And compared with the mainland's total soybean imports of nearly 100 million tons last year, a single order of 297,000 tons is more symbolic, and it is still far from returning to the past procurement boom. This means that even if there are new fluctuations in Sino-US relations this year, the mainland's soybean purchases will not be affected, and it will have a little more confidence in the strategic game with the United States.