WASHINGTON — For the first time in seven years, China did not purchase a single bushel of soybeans from the United States this summer as the two countries remain in economic conflict. This comes just one year after China purchased 27 million metric tons of American soybeans, amounting to $12.6 billion.
American farmers have long relied on China’s massive demand for soybean meal, a high-protein animal feed. Now, as China turns to Brazil and Argentina to meet its soybean needs, U.S. farmers are left scrambling to sell their crops.
“Let’s be clear, this is a man-made disaster caused by Donald Trump and his administration,” soybean farmer John Bartman said at a press call hosted by the Democratic National Committee in October. “Why? Because there’s nearly 1 billion bushels of soybeans that don’t have a home right now.”
The scale of the disaster
U.S. farmers will lose roughly $100 per acre this year, according to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. For Adam Phelon, who planted over 1,000 acres of soybeans on his family farm in Melvern, Kan., that could mean a $100,000 loss in gross income.
“It’s been 40 years of market development that’s taken place to get it to where we are, and so having that just eroded away, we can’t just replace that overnight,” Phelon said in an interview. “We’re going to see lasting effects for years to come.”
Grain market economist Ed Usset said he’s concerned about the long-term implications of losing China’s business, specifically if China learns it no longer needs the United States to fulfill its soybean needs.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz expressed similar sentiments, calling on Trump to end the “ridiculous trade war” and recognize the long-lasting damage China’s boycott will have on rural America.
“The thing we need to keep in mind is it took decades to establish these markets,” Walz said during the press call. “China didn’t just sign one-year contracts with Argentina. They signed some of them up to a decade-long, and it’s going to take us years to get these markets back.”
In September, Argentina temporarily suspended its 26% soybean export tax in an attempt to boost sales. China then purchased 7 million metric tons of Argentine soybeans, to the dismay of American farmers. Phelon was further angered to see President Trump finalize a $20 billion bailout to stimulate Argentina’s economy, calling the move “a kick in the pants to farmers.”
Soybean oil as a solution
As the United States searches for other export markets for American soybeans, the expanding biofuels market offers a promising opportunity to drive domestic demand — specifically, for soybean oil.
Historically, soybean meal has contributed much more to driving the value of a bushel, according to Scott Irwin, an agricultural marketing professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“A rule of thumb was that around two-thirds of the value of a bushel of soybeans could be traced to soybean meal,” Irwin said. “That has dropped to 50–55% with the boom in biodiesel and renewable diesel production, particularly the latter.”
Soybean oil can be processed into renewable diesel, a sustainable fuel made from plants or animal fats that is chemically identical to petroleum, but much better for the environment because, like all plants, soybeans absorb carbon dioxide as they grow rather than raising greenhouse gas emissions.
In June, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed raising minimum volume mandates for the use of different biofuels under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) for 2026 and 2027. The proposal would increase the amount of renewable fuel required to be blended into U.S. transportation fuel, like the diesel fuel truckers use to fill their tanks.
If the EPA proposal becomes a final regulation, it will mandate the highest renewable fuel blending standards in American history. The development would heavily benefit soybean farmers by driving the demand for soybean oil to fulfill the EPA’s regulations, Irwin said.
Greenhouse gases produced by advanced biofuels stay in the atmosphere for half as long as gases generated from petroleum, Irwin said.
“On that front, surprisingly, the Trump administration is encouraging something that’s positive from a greenhouse gas climate perspective,” Irwin said.
Renewable diesel is considered a “drop-in” substitute for petroleum diesel, Scott Gerlt, the Chief Economist of the American Soybean Association, told Planet Forward in an interview. From an engineering perspective, that means renewable diesel can be used as a replacement for petroleum diesel without worrying about changing infrastructure or blending levels.
Soybean oil’s potential doesn’t stop at the fuel pump. Researchers Eric Cochran and Chris Williams from Iowa State University are taking soybean oil to the roads: Their soybean-based asphalt polymer can replace petroleum additives, making pavement both longer lasting and more sustainable.
The traditional polymer additive used in asphalt is SPS, a purely petroleum-based polymer that is rarely manufactured domestically nowadays. A key component of SPS called butadiene can also be hazardous to handle, Cochran said. Soybean oil, on the other hand, reduces reliance on petroleum products while supporting the domestic soybean market.
“Making your pavements last longer means less raw material, less energy, less fuel needed for all that construction, and then the materials that are going into the pavements become increasingly U.S. agriculturally sourced,” Cochran said.
Cochran said the product is currently being manufactured across the United States and sold to county engineers, contractors, asphalt terminals, and oil refineries. Over the next year, homeowners can look out for do-it-yourself products for roofing and driveway maintenance.
In the meantime, the Trump administration is expected to announce a relief plan of at least $10 billion for farmers hurt by tariffs. Still, farmers have said the temporary fix doesn’t provide what they actually want, and what soybean oil might give them a chance to do: to compete fairly in the global marketplace.
“This is our livelihood. We need to make sure that we have a place to go with our soybeans,” Phelon said. “That’s the number one goal. We want to feed and fuel the world, and without trade around the world, we’re not able to do that.”
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