The Dictatorship
Doubts Arise Over China’s commitment to buy American soybeans afer USDA Report
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — New data the Agriculture Department released Friday created serious doubts about whether China will really buy millions of bushels of American soybeans like the Trump administration touted last month after a high-stakes meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The USDA report released after the government reopened showed only two Chinese purchases of American soybeans since the summit in South Korea that totaled 332,000 metric tons. That’s well short of the 12 million metric tons that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said China agreed to purchase by January and nowhere near the 25 million metric tons she said they would buy in each of the next three years.
American farmers were hopeful that their biggest customer would resume buying their crops. But CoBank’s Tanner Ehmke, who is its lead economist for grains and oilseed, said there isn’t much incentive for China to buy from America right now because they have plenty of soybeans on hand that they have bought from Brazil and other South American countries this year, and the remaining tariffs ensure that U.S. soybeans remain more expensive than Brazilian beans.
“We are still not even close to what has been advertised from the U.S. in terms of what the agreement would have been,” Ehmke said.
Beijing has yet to confirm any detailed soybean purchase agreement but only that the two sides have reached “consensus” on expanding trade in farm products. Ehmke said that even if China did promise to buy American soybeans it may have only agreed to buy them if the price was attractive.
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Trump said his team spoke with Chinese officials today and they assured the White House they would be purchasing more soybeans, but he didn’t offer any details of how much.
“They’re in the process of doing not only a little bit but they’ll be doing a lot of soybean purchases,” he told reporters.
The Chinese tariff on American beans remains high at about 24%, despite a 10-percentage-point reduction following the summit.
Soybean prices fell sharply by 23 cents to $11.24 per bushel Friday. Ehmke said “that’s the market being shocked by the lack of Chinese demand that was confirmed in USDA data today.” Prices are still higher than they were before the agreement when they were selling for $10.60 per bushel, but the price may continue to drop unless there are significant new purchases.
Before the trade agreement, Trump had promised farmers would receive an aid package to help them survive the trade war with China. That was put on hold during the shutdown, and now it’s not clear whether the administration will offer farmers aid like Trump did in his first administration.
American farmers have been through this before after Trump’s first trade war with China. The trade agreement China signed with the United States in 2020 promised massive purchases of U.S. crops. But the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted trade between the two nations just as the agreement went into effect. In 2022, U.S. farm exports to China hit a record, but then fell.
Soybean prices are actually still a little higher than they were a year ago even without China’s normal purchases of roughly one-quarter of the U.S. crop. That’s because this year’s soybean crop is a little smaller while domestic demand remained strong with the continued growth in biodiesel production.
But farmers are dealing with the soaring cost of fertilizer, seed, equipment and labor this year, and that is hurting their profits. The Kentucky farmer who is president of the American Soybean Association, Caleb Ragland, has said he worries that thousands of farmers could go out of business this year without significant Chinese purchases or government aid.
Ragland said he’s still optimistic that China will follow through on the purchases, but it’s hard to be confident in that right now with so few sales reported.
“We don’t want to assume they won’t. But it’s going to be a wonderful day when we actually deliver those soybeans, and when there’s my money in hand and so forth and the transaction’s complete,” Ragland said.
China is the world’s largest buyer of soybeans. China bought more than $12.5 billion worth of the nearly $24.5 billion worth of U.S. soybeans that were exported last year.
But China quit buying American soybeans this year after Trump imposed his tariffs and continued to shift more of their purchases over to South America. Even before the trade war, Brazilian beans accounted for more than 70% of China’s imports last year, while the U.S. share fell to 21%, World Bank data shows.
Ragland said that every vender he talks to has told him they are increasing their prices for next year, which will continue to put pressure on farmers.
“We’re still looking at sharp losses and the red ink as we figure budgets for 26 is still very much in play,” he said.
___
AP Writer Didi Tang contributed to this report from Washington.
As awards season progresses, celebrities continue to speak out against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown — especially in Minneapolis. Though some stars have opted for a slight nod of resistance with pins that say “ICE out,” others have been more vocal in their stances.
Upon accepting the Grammy Award for Best Música Urbana Album on Sunday night, Bad Bunny got straight to the point.
“Before I say thanks to God, I’m going to say ICE out,” the Puerto Rican performer said as soon as he approached the podium with award in hand.
After a standing ovation and cheers from the crowd, he continued.
“We’re not savage, we’re not animals, we’re not aliens. We are humans and we are Americans.”
This is not the first time the artist has spoken out against the Trump administration’s rhetoric against immigrants in the United States. Last year, he announced he would no longer tour in the U.S., which drew criticism from some right-wing commentators.
Despite that pushback, Bad Bunny scored the headlining spot at this year’s Super Bowl and said he decided to “do just one date in the United States.”
The album Bad Bunny accepted the award for, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” also won Album of the Year, becoming the first primarily Spanish-language album to win the distinction in the ceremony’s 68-year history.
Kathleen Creedon is a platforms editor for MS NOW. She previously worked as a web producer for Vanity Fair.
Despite a brutal critical reception“Melania,” the documentary about the first lady released on January 30, outperformed expectations in its opening weekend.
“Melania” earned more than $7 million at the domestic U.S. box office, the highest opening for a non-concert documentary in decades. Most recently, the best-performing film in the same genre was Stephen Gray and Chris Radtke’s “After Death,” which opened at around $5 million domestically in 2023. With an opening box office of almost $24 million, Michael Moore’s 2004 film “Fahrenheit 9/11” remains the highest-grossing political documentary.
Critics, however, have been less kind to “Melania.” The documentary has received an aggregate rating of 10% among professional critic reviews on Rotten Tomatoes (which is owned by Versant, MS NOW’s parent company), and negative reviews from major news outlets abound. Writing for MS NOW, media critic Jen Cheney said the film is “so devoid of substance that it feels wrong to call it a documentary” and suggested “This thing is basically ‘Let Them Eat Cake: The Movie,’” invoking Marie Antoinette, the French queen beheaded during the revolution.
Still, the film about the model-turned-political figure found its audience. Media analytics company Comscore reported that roughly 72% of Melania’s audience during opening weekend were women, and 72% were over the age of 55. The majority of the movie-goers were also white.
Directed by Brett Ratner in his first film since he faced accusations of sexual abuse (allegations he has denied), “Melania” outperformed expectations out of the gate but has far to go before it becomes profitable: Amazon’s MGM Studios paid $40 million to license the film and another $35 million to promote it.
“We’re very encouraged by the strong start and positive audience response, with early box office for ‘Melania’ exceeding our expectation,” said Kevin Wilson, Amazon MGM Studios’ head of domestic theatrical distribution.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter and producer for MS NOW. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
The Dictatorship
British prime minister says Prince Andrew should testify to Congress over Epstein ties
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the disgraced British royal formerly known as Prince Andrew, to testify before the U.S. Congress over his ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
“Firstly, I have always approached this question with the victims of Epstein in mind. Epstein’s victims have to be the first priority. As for whether there should be an apology, that’s a matter for Andrew,” Starmer told press on Saturday during an official visit to Tokyo, Japan.
“But yes, in terms of testifying, I have always said anybody who has got information should be prepared to share that information in whatever form they are asked to do that. You can’t be victim-centered if you’re not prepared to do that.”
The statement comes after the Justice Department on Friday released more than 3 million pages of documents related to its investigation into Epstein as part of its mandate to fulfill the requirements of the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
Among the documents are photographs that show a barefoot Mountbatten-Windsor kneeling over and touching the stomach and waist of an unidentified female figure whose face has been redacted.
Also among the newly released documents, the Guardian identified email exchanges between him and Epstein dated 2010. In them, Epstein tells Mountbatten-Windsor, “I have a friend who I think you might enjoy having dinner with” and refers to a 26-year-old Russian woman. Andrew replied that he would be “delighted to see her” and told Epstein to give her his contact information.
Mountbatten-Windsor has been unable to distance himself from the scandal over his friendship with Epstein, the American financier who ran a sex-trafficking ring.
Amid ongoing revelations about his history with Epstein, Mountbatten-Windsor was stripped of his royal titles last year by his older brother, King Charles III. Andrew was also evicted from his home at Royal Lodge, a 30-room mansion located on the grounds of Windsor Castle.
Virginia Giuffreone of Epstein’s victims, sued Mountbatten-Windsor in 2021, claiming she was forced to have sex with him. The case was settled for an undisclosed amount in 2022with no admission of wrongdoing. Giuffre died by suicide last April. Mountbatten-Windsor has repeatedly denied the allegations against him. In a now-famous BBC Newsnight interviewhe claimed he was at a PizzaExpress in Woking with his daughter, Princess Beatrice, at the time of the alleged assault.
MS NOW is reviewing the documents released by the Justice Department in collaboration with journalists from NBC, AP, CNBC and CBS. Journalists from each newsroom worked together to examine the documents and share information about what is in them. Each outlet is responsible for its own independent news coverage of the documents.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter and producer for MS NOW. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
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