The biggest hit to U.S. farmers has been China’s near-total halt to soybean purchases. Soybeans are a cornerstone of American agriculture, as more than 270,000 farms grow the crop, according to the latest Census of Agriculture. In 2024, more than 40% of U.S. soybean production was exported, with about half going to China.

Brazil has stepped in as China’s biggest supplier of soybeans, which are used to feed livestock to support protein demand. As of October, Brazil had exported a record 79 million metric tons of soybeans to China, nearly 80% of its total soybean shipments during the period, according to a farmdoc Daily analysis of data from Brazil’s Foreign Trade Secretariat.

In addition to building more seaport terminals, Chinese companies are building rail lines, tunnels, and other infrastructure to transport more agricultural products from Latin American farms to their ships. These types of investments mean Chinese companies are prepared to buy Latin American products for many years to come. 

“What are the signs that China’s here to stay [in Latin America]? Really, the infrastructure,” said Henry Ziemer, an associate fellow with the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a U.S. nonprofit policy research organization that reports 23 ports across Latin America have some degree of Chinese investment.  “Ports, railways, roads, bridges, metro lines, energy, power plants are probably the best signs that China has a long-term commitment … These are long-term projects.”

The drop in exports to China has also reduced traffic at some key U.S. ports. At the New Orleans District — a dominant grain corridor — soybean exports grew by less than 3% between September 2024 and September 2025, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics at the U.S. Department of Transportation. Shipments through the Los Angeles District fell almost 15%, while the steepest drop came in the Seattle District, where exports plunged 81%.

“Exports in general have been very soft and we attributed it to the retaliatory tariffs that have been put in place by China,” said Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles. “Our single biggest export sector is agriculture … of that, soybeans are the number one export commodity.”

In November, China agreed to buy more U.S. soybeans but it would still fall short of recent norms. Even if China buys at least 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans annually over the next three years, that volume would remain about 14% below the five-year average shipped to China from 2020 to 2024, according to an analysis from Purdue University’s Center for Commercial Agriculture and farmdoc Daily.

Some purchases have started rolling in. But April Hemmes, an Iowa soybean farmer who has promoted increased trade with China, said the agreement would be difficult to fulfill, noting that delivering 12 million metric tons of soybeans by early next year is “not very realistic.”