WNAM MONITORING: US President Donald Trump accused China on Tuesday of “purposefully” avoiding purchases of American soybeans and threatened to end trade on cooking oil and other goods in retaliation.
“I believe that China purposefully not buying our soybeans, and causing difficulty for our soybean farmers, is an economically hostile act,” Trump wrote on his social media company Truth Social.
He said Washington is weighing termination of business with Beijing over cooking oil and “other elements of trade, as retribution.”
“As an example, we can easily produce cooking oil ourselves, we don’t need to purchase it from China,” he said.
US soybean exports to China fell from $17.9 billion in 2022 to $12.2 billion in 2024, according to data from the Agriculture Department’s Foreign Agricultural Service.
Trump said earlier that soybeans will be a key agenda item in his potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Trump said Sunday that trade tensions with China will be resolved, posting a reassuring message days after threatening 100% tariffs after Beijing expanded rare earth export restrictions. “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine,” he wrote on Truth Social.
China on Tuesday warned the US against the “talks and threats” approach and urged Washington to work with Beijing to restore a stable economic relationship.
