As Europe confronts growing security concerns and new regulatory challenges, its feed industry is warning of a potential protein supply disruption. Meanwhile, U.S. soybean meal exporters are securing unusually large sales to European buyers. Is a lasting shift in transatlantic agricultural trade underway? On Monday morning, I sat at my parents' kitchen table in Warsaw as emergency sirens sounded across the city. They were part of scheduled civil defense exercises, known as Sy

The red carpets have been rolled up, the motorcades have left Washington, and the carefully choreographed handshakes and smiling photographs from President Donald Trump’s summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping are already receding into the background. With the ceremony over and the White House fact sheet now available, the agricultural outcome looks considerably less substantial than the expectations surrounding the meeting only days earlier. Those expectations were high, p

A 155-page report on the U.S. farm economy recently made its way into the political news cycle for a rather remarkable reason. The report, Surviving the Farm Economy Downturn: 2026 Update, contains a sentence that is unusually direct for agricultural economic analysis connected in any way to USDA: “The lower prices are the result of lost export market opportunities due to Trump administration policies aimed at leveling the export playing field with our trading partners and in

The numbers increasingly say yes. But nearly 9 million tons are still waiting to ship—and politics may determine whether they ever do. For much of 2025, the U.S.–China soybean trade story was remarkably simple: China was not buying. Then came the October 2025 meeting between Presidents Trump and Xi Jinping and, with it, a remarkably specific soybean commitment. The White House subsequently announced that China would purchase at least 12 million metric tons (MMT) of U.S. soybe

The President recently raised an unusually broad trade-policy possibility: if the Federal Reserve does not lower interest rates, the United States could stop trading with countries with which it runs a trade deficit. The President reiterated the threat over the weekend ahead of the Federal Reserve's September meeting. Whether such a sweeping policy would ever be implemented is a separate question. A complete cutoff of trade with U.S. deficit partners would represent an extrao

Record soybean and canola processing is expanding U.S. vegetable-oil supplies, but biofuel demand is expanding even faster. Demetrica estimates the U.S. net vegetable-oil import requirement could exceed 7 million metric tons in 2026/27, while combined vegetable-oil and used cooking oil imports could approach nearly 10 million metric tons. Data sources: USDA GATS, USDA PSD, Demetrica estimates For several years, the U.S. vegetable oil market has been moving through a structura

U.S. beef imports continued to climb during the first half of 2026. Based on Demetrica's analysis of USDA Global Agricultural Trade System (GATS) data, converted to carcass-weight equivalent (CWE), U.S. beef imports reached approximately 1.5 million metric tons during January–June 2026, compared with 1.3 million metric tons during the same period of 2025. That is an increase of approximately 12% year over year. The increase comes after several years of rapid growth in U.S. be

USDA's latest Outlook for U.S. Agricultural Trade (August 2026) arrived with an enthusiastic message: the world wants more American agriculture. According to USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) accompanying social-media post, fiscal year (FY) 2027 is projected to be the "second greatest year ever" for U.S. agricultural exports, with exports rising $7.0 billion from the current FY2026 forecast to $186.5 billion. FAS also highlighted a dramatic reduction in the agricultural

Canada and China were trading tariff blows not long ago. Today, Chinese state media is praising Canada's willingness to stand up to Washington. In global trade, alliances are becoming increasingly transactional — and increasingly fluid. There is never a dull moment in international trade. Only a relatively short time ago, Canada was confronting China over tariffs that directly affected one of Canada's most important agricultural sectors. Today, Chinese state media is pointing

USDA's June 2026 trade data generated considerable attention after U.S. soybean exports reached approximately 1.9 million metric tons (MMT). The figure exceeded many market expectations and marked the strongest June export performance since 2022. For those following USDA's weekly Export Sales reports, however, the result was hardly unexpected. Weekly sales and shipment data had already indicated a stronger June, underscoring the value of monitoring export activity throughout

Last year (2025), one of the more surprising developments in U.S. biofuel policy was seeing organizations representing farmers, ethanol producers, fuel retailers, and even the American Petroleum Institute standing on the same side of the table. Together, they urged Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide long-term certainty for renewable fuels by expanding year-round sales of E15 gasoline while reforming the Small Refinery Exemption (SRE) program. Fa

On July 30, 2026, ADM announced another expansion of its North American soybean crush network. This week, it wasn't simply another company investment. It was another signal that the U.S. soybean industry is entering the next phase of the biofuels expansion. For the past couple of years, processors have been operating in an unusual environment. Demand for soybean oil continued to grow as renewable diesel capacity expanded, yet long-term policy certainty remained elusive. Compa

For much of 2025 and 2026, China's soybean buying strategy appeared straightforward: buy Brazilian soybeans and buy a lot of them. Brazil harvested another record crop, export supplies were abundant, and Chinese importers aggressively built inventories while prices remained attractive. As a result, U.S. soybean exports to China were not impressive. What can we expect in the next marketing year? Let's look at USDA's latest Export Sales. The report shows a noticeable improvemen

Recent comments suggesting the United States should reduce trade with Spain have generated plenty of political headlines. The trade data tell a different story, one of a growing export market that supports American farmers, ethanol producers, livestock feed suppliers, and specialty crop growers. By Agata Kingsbury, Demetrica Analytics International trade is often discussed in political terms. Countries are portrayed as winners or losers, trade deficits become headlines, and d

The U.S. tallow market is undergoing another notable shift, and this time the story is not only about the sheer scale of imports, but also about the changing composition of those imports. Over the last several years, the United States has rapidly transformed from a relatively modest participant in global tallow trade into the world’s largest import destination. That change has been driven overwhelmingly by booming demand for inedible tallow as a feedstock for renewable diesel

The U.S. vegetable oil market is entering a strange and increasingly important phase that deserves far more attention than it currently receives. According to the latest USDA vegetable oil projections analyzed in my recent report, food use of palm oil in the United States continues to trend higher even as domestic soybean oil and Canadian canola are increasingly absorbed into renewable diesel and biofuel markets. At first glance, this may sound like a niche agricultural story

The global vegetable oil market is changing in ways that many participants are still underestimating. For decades, vegetable oil demand was largely a food story. Population growth, rising incomes, urbanization, and changing diets drove consumption growth across major importing markets. Biofuels certainly played an important role, particularly in Europe, but food remained the dominant lens through which most market participants analyzed vegetable oils. That framework is changi

A Decade of Structural Change For most of the past decade, U.S. tallow imports were relatively small and largely irrelevant in the global context. Volumes remained modest through the mid-2010s, reflecting a market where domestic production was sufficient to meet demand and exports were still a meaningful outlet. That dynamic has completely changed. Starting around 2019–2020, imports began to trend higher, but the real inflection point came after 2021. Since then, volumes have

U.S. Vegetable Oil Trade U.S. Vegetable Oil Import and Export US-India Trade Deal Talk: Why Bulk Crops Are Unlikely and Why Soybean Oil Is the Real (But Limited) Story Talk of a potential U.S.-India trade deal has re-energized agricultural markets. Early price reactions, particularly in soybean oil, suggest optimism that U.S. farm exports to India could expand meaningfully. Headlines, however, tend to flatten a far more complex reality. To understand what’s plausible (and w

U.S. Soybean Meal Exports: A Flat Start to 2025/26 Masks Diverging Market Signals U.S. soybean meal exports in the first quarter of the 2025/26 marketing year (October–December) got off to a steady, but uneven start. On the surface, total exports during the period were essentially flat year over year compared with the same months of 2024/25. At the aggregate level, this suggests the U.S. export program is holding its ground early in the season, neither accelerating nor showin