US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday that China has agreed to buy 12 million metric tonnes of American soybeans during the current season through January, and has committed to buying 25 million tonnes annually for the next three years, as part of a larger trade agreement with Beijing.

Bessent said other countries in Southeast Asia have agreed to buy another 19 million tonnes of US soybeans, but did not specify a time-frame for those purchases.

"So our great soybean farmers... should prosper in the years to come," Bessent told Fox Business Network's "Mornings with Maria" programme.

US President Donald Trump wrote in a social media post overnight after a meeting with President Xi Jinping in South Korea that Mr Xi had authorised China to begin the purchase of massive amounts of soybeans, sorghum and other farm products.

US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins applauded Trump's comments on soybeans and sorghum in a post on X.

But Even Rogers Pay, director at Beijing-based Trivium China, said the agreement effectively constitutes a return to business as usual in terms of US soybean exports to China.

"It targets a level of trade that has been pretty consistent with the past few years," she said.

Johnny Xiang, founder of Beijing-based AgRadar Consulting, said: "Commercial buyers are still waiting for more details – whether China will reduce the tariff on US soybeans from 20 percent to 10 percent, or remove it entirely."

"If the tariff is not completely lifted, commercial buyers will have little incentive to purchase US soybeans," he said.

China, the world's biggest soybean buyer and the top market for US farmers, had turned its vast appetite for US crops into a powerful trade war bargaining chip.

Facing import duties of 23 percent on soybeans after rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs, Chinese buyers largely shunned the US autumn harvest, turning instead to South American supplies.

The drop in Chinese demand has cost US farmers – a key pillar of Trump's political base – billions of US dollars in lost sales.

Since the trade war of the first Trump administration, China has diversified its sources of soybean imports.

In 2024, China bought roughly 20 percent of its soybeans from the United States, down from 41 percent in 2016, customs data shows. (Reuters)