Trade

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New regulations in Mexico threaten to disrupt more than $100 million in organic food trade with the U.S., and the Biden administration has less than three months to address the situation before the requirements take effect.

Two major agribusinesses have entered into a sales agreement for 11 grain facilities ahead of an anticipated Department of Justice divestiture order.

The U.S. ag sector really wants to know what’s coming next for the tenuous trade situation with China, but farmers and ranchers may have to settle for the status quo in the near future as the Biden administration takes its first steps toward dealing with the communist country.

The U.S. on Monday suspended a formal trade tie with Burma two months after a military coup and the arrest of the country’s elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and others in her National League for Democracy party. The U.S. action comes after years of increasing agricultural trade with Burma amid warming relations between the two countries, but that progress is now threatened.

The U.S. shipped 353,200 metric tons of sorghum – roughly 14 million bushels - to China from March 5-11, an extraordinarily high amount that helped push prices to $5 per bushel, according to the latest USDA trade data and an analysis by the National Sorghum Producers.

U.S. farm groups are concerned about the increasing agricultural trade troubles with Mexico and Canada despite the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement and Biden administration officials are stressing that resolving those issues is a priority.

If approved by the Surface Transportation Board, the transaction would create the first rail network linking the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.

China is on a corn-buying spree. USDA has announced large daily export sales for the 2020-21 marketing year on four of the five days this week, culminating with a sale of 800,000 metric tons to Chinese buyers on Friday.

U.S. beef exports to Japan have been so strong that they set off a “safeguard trigger” designed to protect domestic producers by increasing the country’s tariff level.

The Senate easily confirmed Katherine Tai to be President Joe Biden’s U.S. Trade Representative with a bipartisan 98-0 vote Wednesday.