A casual observer who only reads national news might be excused for believing that China is the only important buyer of soybeans from the United States. As part of the recent trade deal signed by the two countries, China has promised to buy at least 12 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans by the end of 2025 and at least 25 million metric tons annually through 2028.
This agreement ends China’s suspension of soybean imports, which occurred amid previous trade tensions. The deal also includes resuming purchases of U.S. sorghum and hardwood logs.
As welcome as the deal was to hard-pressed American soybean growers, observers pointed out that it only brings soybean purchases back to an average, not a peak. But the American overseas soybean markets were not standing still during China’s absence from May through November.
“I’m very glad to be in the soybean industry right now,” Rosalind Leeck recently told High Plains Journal. “It remains an incredibly important crop globally, and global demand will continue to grow.”
Leeck is a managing director at U.S. Soybean Export Council, whose job is to develop overseas market for U.S. soybeans and soy products. And away from the headlines, that’s just what USSEC has been doing. “We can supply what the world wants, whether based on various intrinsic characteristics, or other attributes such as sustainability.”
Latin America and the Caribbean
Latin America and the Caribbean remain essential growth regions for U.S. soy. That’s why the U.S. Soybean Export Council brought its full force to Cancun this past June—hosting the 2025 Americas Agricultural Cooperators Conference, the organization’s largest event in the region.
With more than 130 attendees—including senior executives from animal feed, poultry, swine, and aquaculture companies, U.S. soy farmers, and allied organizations like the U.S. Grains Council & BioProducts Council and U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service—the event focused on forging deeper partnerships.
U.S. soybean meal is an excellent source of consistently high-quality protein and metabolizable energy. It exhibits a superior amino acid profile and digestibility compared to Argentine or Brazilian soybean meal. Higher digestibility, as well as having higher sucrose than Argentine or Brazilian soybeans, means more energy is metabolized by animals fed soybean meal derived from U.S. soy. These factors help livestock producers reduce feed costs and improve animal performance and efficiency.
Leeck notes the tremendous growth in requests for labeling and certification of soybeans, for carbon footprint and Scope 3 reporting.
“U.S. soy is second to none,” she said. “It has the smallest carbon footprint by far.”
Brazil has made news recently for a court case in which its high court threw out former restrictions on clearing rainforests for cropland, but U.S. soybean gains come from higher yields, not more land.
Diversifying market
Mike McCrainie, a fourth-generation farmer growing soybeans and corn near Claremont, South Dakota—who also serves as vice chair of USSEC’s board of directors—believes the media is underplaying part of the soybean story—the part where the American market is diversifying.
“We’re no longer totally relying on China,” he told High Plains Journal. “We’ve done a lot of promotion in the European Union, Southeast Asia and Latin America. The Philippines, Mexico, Colombia, and Canada are among our top four markets for soymeal. The Philippines buys almost 100% of their soybean needs from the U.S.”
These are the fruits of long-standing relationships nurtured over years or decades, McCrainie said. “In India, USSEC has cultivated relationships. They want to invest in their food supply,” and are working on reducing remaining “technical” obstacles to U.S. soy imports.
Leeck agrees, adding that American soymeal already enters the EU duty-free. Apples-to-apples carbon accounting for renewable fuels would extend the same advantages to U.S. soybean-derived biofuels.
McCrainie cited Indonesia as a market with a large population, expanding middle class and healthy appetite both for meat and for soybeans for human consumptions. Tempeh, a fermented soy product, is a major part of the diet there. And although there is little or no market for pork in this Muslim-majority country (except among the 11 million strong overseas Chinese community), the poultry industry is developing, according to McCrainie.
Breakthrough moment
Leeck notes that the 2020 Summer Olympic Games held in Japan were a breakthrough moment for American soy products and sustainability in Japan. “Ten years ago, ‘sustainability’ wasn’t a word they used—but by 2020, it was. American soy products imported as part of the preparations for those Olympic “kick-started a sustainability ramp-up,” Leeck said. Japan was one of the earliest adopters of the U.S. sustainable soy logo.
Leeck notes that the first Tokyo office of what became USSEC opened in 1956. “A lot has happened in the past 70 years. But soy relationships have been consistent over those years. Governments change—we don’t.”
David Murray can be reached at [email protected].
