US Commerce Consultant Jamieson Greer testifies throughout a US Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Associated Companies listening to on 2026 funding priorities, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, Dec. 9, 2025.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Pictures
U.S. Commerce Consultant Jamieson Greer instructed a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday that the deadline for China to purchase 12 million metric tons of soybeans from American farmers was not the tip of December because the White Home has stated, however the finish of the “rising season.”
Greer’s remark on the listening to got here on the heels of a report by NBC Information displaying that the tempo of China’s purchases of soybeans in current weeks was nicely in need of reaching the agreed quantity by the tip of the calendar yr.
China, which in October agreed to finish its monthslong boycott of American soybeans amid a commerce battle, to this point has purchased solely about 3 million metric tons, the commerce consultant instructed members of the Agriculture, Rural Growth, Meals and Drug Administration, and Associated Companies Subcommittee.
Greer stated there was a “discrepancy” in what the White Home has described because the deadline and the precise deadline for the purchases to be accomplished.
The latest rising season for soybeans resulted in November, in response to the U.S. Division of Agriculture.
CNBC has requested Greer’s workplace whether or not there’s a onerous or tough deadline for China to achieve 12 million metric tons of purchases, as agreed to as a part of a commerce cope with President Donald Trump in October.
Greer’s disclosure got here in response to a query by Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb.
“There stays nervousness about if and when China will totally comply with by means of on these buy commitments that have been made,” Fischer stated.
She famous that the White Home reality sheet on the commerce deal stated China would buy 12 million metric tons by the tip of the calendar yr — contradicting current feedback from Greer.
The actual fact sheet says, “China will buy at the very least 12 million metric tons (MMT) of U.S. soybeans over the last two months of 2025 and in addition buy at the very least 25 MMT of U.S. soybeans in every of 2026, 2027, and 2028.”
Greer instructed Fischer, “It’s for this rising season, so, thanks for highlighting that.”
‘”We have heard from a pair farmers, they wished to find out about that discrepancy, and it’s a discrepancy, it is by means of the rising season,” he stated.
Joe Glauber, a former U.S. Division of Agriculture chief economist through the Obama administration, instructed CNBC in an interview he would not know what the administration means when it refers back to the rising season.
“It isn’t a time period that USDA means by any probability,” Glauber stated. “Does that imply at harvests or does that imply truly the tip of the advertising and marketing yr, which is the extra frequent method?”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent final week stated he anticipated China to achieve the 12 million metric ton mark by “the tip of the season.”
“So I believe that’ll be Feb. 28,” Bessent stated, throughout an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin at The New York Instances DealBook Summit in New York.
“They’re in an ideal cadence to finish that objective,” Bessent stated, after Sorkin stated information from the U.S. Division of Agriculture as of Nov. 14 confirmed that China had solely bought 330,000 metric tons.
Bessent known as the determine Sorkin cited “unhealthy data.”
Glauber stated the advertising and marketing yr for soybeans is September, when the soybeans are harvested and able to promote, by means of August of the subsequent yr. China could be extra more likely to hit shopping for targets from the U.S. by subsequent August, since Brazil dominates the soybean market within the early months of the brand new yr that coincides with its harvest season and low-cost costs. The U.S. sometimes exports extra to China later within the yr, when its soybeans are cheaper.
However that is a far longer time than the preliminary two-month window the White Home pitched when it introduced the China framework.
“That is a very long time,” Glauber stated. “This isn’t any kind of speedy reduction.”
CNBC has requested the USDA for touch upon Greer’s remarks.
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