Chinese importers closed contracts to buy 720,000 metric tons of U.S. soybeans – most of it for new crop – according to a USDA announcement Thursday, signaling the country is calculating the growing tightness of Brazilian supplies and locking in deliveries past September.

China is shunning U.S. soybeans and pork – at least temporarily – in retaliation to U.S. involvement in China’s treatment of Hong Kong, but expectations are that Chinese state buyers won’t be able to shut off U.S. trade for much longer.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is making it clear to Brazil that the U.S. is serious about strengthening trade and economic ties between the two countries whose leaders appear to be fond of each other.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro did last week what many well-to-do Brazilians do. He went to Florida. But unlike most tourists, he stopped at Mar-a-Lago for a friendly meeting with President Donald Trump.

The U.S. has lifted its ban on Brazilian beef after shutting out the product more than two years ago because of repeated sanitary and health violations, according to USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.

Brazil’s soybean harvest will be coming in a little later than normal this season, but farmers are expected to have a bumper crop.

President Donald Trump announced Monday the U.S. will be restoring tariffs on Brazilian and Argentine steel and aluminum, potentially disrupting the recently improving U.S. trade relationships with Brazil.

An agreement 24 years in the making is set to come to fruition as the Brazilian government prepares to implement a tariff rate quota to allow an increase in duty-free wheat imports.