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China is on track to buy 25 million metric tons of U.S. soybeans this year and next, U.S. Deputy Agriculture Secretary Stephen Vaden says.
The soybeans are on top of the $17 billion in U.S. ag purchases that China agreed to make on a yearly basis for the remainder of the Trump administration, Vaden said Tuesday at a WSJ Global Food Forum in Chicago.
“Every indication that we have at the Department of Agriculture is that China intends to keep these commitments,” Vaden said.
The deal also includes an initial pledge of 12 million metric tons that successfully concluded, though long-term tracking of export data remains a major focus for U.S. farmers. The Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the White House at the time said there would be revived market access for U.S. poultry.
“The takeaway is that agriculture is at the top of every trade deal with China or any other country,” Vaden said. “We have a very simple trade policy. If you want to do a trade agreement with the United States, agriculture is going to get a win. If agriculture isn't able to get a win, your country will not be able to negotiate a trade policy with this administration.”
The comments come as Trump administration negotiators are in India this week for bilateral trade talks aimed at finalizing an interim agreement reached in February for India to buy $500 billion in U.S. goods over the next five years, including agriculture products.
Vaden also weighed in on the spike in U.S. tomato prices, saying he’s more concerned about farm production costs than the impact of tariffs when it comes to food costs.
Tomato prices have climbed since the U.S. withdrew from a pact suspending antidumping duties on Mexican tomatoes, snapping 17% tariffs into place. Since they took force last July, the average price of field-grown tomatoes across U.S. cities has climbed from $1.79 per pound to $2.69 in April 2026.
Vaden pointed to elevated prices of fertilizer that have been on the rise for more than five years. The deputy ag secretary also repeated his criticism of countervailing duties on phosphate fertilizer put in place by the Biden administration in 2021.
“The domestic companies have not responded with additional supplies. That is supposedly what these trade barriers were designed to do,” he said.
Vaden said USDA continues to have talks at a Cabinet level on whether the countervailing duties should continue against Moroccan and Russian fertilizer imports.
USDA and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative have been divided over how to proceed on the matter, Agri-Pulse reported in April.
Fertilizer producers Mosaic and Simplot said a few weeks ago, as part of a five-year review, that they support keeping the countervailing duties on Morocco and Russia.
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“So far as I can tell, American farmers have paid out an awful lot of extra profit to Mosaic and other companies like that for no benefit, and they have definitely received no additional supply,” Vaden said.
He also criticized Florida-based Mosaic for saying it may need to curtail domestic production of phosphate at a time when global supplies are in doubt.
“Yet, despite that, they are at a record export pace of fertilizer that they have produced in this country that they are shipping overseas,” Vaden said. “It just doesn't add up.”
When asked for comment, a Mosaic spokesperson told Agri-Pulse: "The reality is that we cannot afford to make phosphate fertilizer in the current environment."
Vaden also said the Trump administration has received interest from a “host of people, including international companies” about starting new fertilizer production facilities in the U.S.
“I wish I could go through and talk with you about some of these, but they’ve been shared with us in confidence,” he said.
Vaden said the U.S.’s embrace of fossil fuels gives it an edge over Europe.
For example, the biggest cost in producing nitrogen fertilizer is for energy, he noted.
“You know what we have here in the United States? A much better energy policy than any of our Western competitor nations, because we did not in this administration disincentivize the use of fossil fuels,” Vaden said. “Even with the increase in fossil fuel price, we have far cheaper natural gas in the United States than they do in the European Union.”
Record beef imports
The deputy ag chief also stressed that the U.S. is pulling in record high levels of beef imports, despite the closure of the Mexican border to cattle because of efforts to prevent New World screwworm from entering the country.
“We also understand that most of the beef we consume is raised right here in the United States, and that's why USDA has put forward a plan to try to put as much land as possible under federal government control that is available for grazing, allowing it to be grazed,” Vaden said, adding that he’s working with his counterpart at the Interior Department on the issue.
A rulemaking will go forward before the end of this year as part of an effort to harmonize regulations between the two agencies, he said.
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