According to the White House, China has agreed to increase trade for U.S. agricultural products such as beef and poultry, buying at an annualized rate of $17 billion per year for 2026 and at that level for 2027 and 2028.
This comes days after President Donald Trump returned from his summit in Beijing where he sought to ease the impact on American farmers from the trade war he launched last year.
The White House disclosed in a statement that China would restore market access for U.S. beef and resume imports of poultry from U.S. states determined by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to be free of the bird flu. The deals are on top of China’s soybean purchase commitments last year.
The agreements offer some hope to American farmers harmed by the trade war as they saw a major export market for soybeans and other products dry up. Farmers also are feeling new pressure from Trump administration policies; the war that the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran has curtailed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a vital trade corridor that has restricted global fertilizer supplies and sent those prices soaring.
Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show China’s imports of U.S. agricultural goods peaked in 2022 with $38 billion but fell to $8 billion in 2025. These figures include nearly $18 billion in soybean purchases in 2022 and $3 billion in 2025.
It’s not immediately clear how much more China would buy from American soybean farmers, who were hit especially hard in the trade war. China, traditionally the largest foreign buyer of American soybeans, stopped purchasing them altogether last year after Trump hiked tariffs on Chinese goods.
The latest agreement builds on a trade truce Trump reached with Chinese President Xi Jinping in October in which China agreed to resume buying U.S. soybeans. The White House said then that China committed to buying 12 million metric tons in the current marketing year and 25 million metric tons for each of the next three years.
Soybeans, which are used for livestock feed and biofuels in China, are among the top U.S. agricultural exports. Soybean exports to China in the past had accounted for about half of U.S. exports of agricultural goods to the Asian nation.
USDA data shows the U.S. exported 10.9 million metric tons of soybeans to China as of May 7, putting China on track to fulfill its previous commitment by the end of the marketing year on Aug. 31. This is well below the 25 million to 30 million metric tons that China purchased in past years. Before Trump’s initial planned trip to Beijing in late March, which was postponed by the Iran war, the American Soybean Association urged him to prioritize soybeans in the trade talks with Xi.
According to the White House, hundreds of U.S. beef plants, including those run by Tyson and Cargill, also will be able to export again to China, though it’s not immediately clear how much beef American businesses will be selling to China.
China let licenses for hundreds of U.S. beef plants expire last year, and the import value for 2025 fell to less than $500 million, according to USDA figures. China’s purchases of U.S. beef had peaked at $2.14 billion in 2022, the government data shows. The U.S. export of poultry meats and products to China was $286 million in 2025, down from more than $1 billion in 2022.
Establishment Of U.S.-China Boards Of Trade And Investment
During the summit last week, Trump and Xi discussed ways to enhance economic cooperation, including expanding market access for American businesses in China and increasing Chinese investment into U.S. industries.
Additionally, the White House disclosed that Trump and Xi chartered two new institutions to optimize the bilateral economic relationship: the U.S.-China Board of Trade and the U.S.-China Board of Investment.
The Board of Trade will allow the United States Government and the Government of China to manage bilateral trade across non-sensitive goods. The Board of Investment will provide a government-to-government forum for investment-related issues.
China’s Ministry of Commerce said that the two bodies would address respective concerns regarding trade and investment. The Board of Trade, the ministry spokesperson said, would allow the two sides to discuss issues such as tariff reductions on specific products. “In principle, the two sides agreed to reduce tariff on products of respective concern at equivalent scale,” the Spokesperson said.
Xi said last week that China’s door of opportunity will open wider when he met with U.S. business leaders joining Trump on the trip.
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