A photographer's snapshot of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the United Nations General Assembly last week revealed a private message that captured the Trump administration's deepening concern over collapsing U.S. soybean exports to China"a crisis now entangled with a controversial economic bailout of Argentina. "Finally " just a heads up, I'm getting more intel, but this is highly unfortunate," read the message, which appeared to be sent from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. "We bailed out Argentina yesterday (Bessent) and in return, the Argentine's [sic] are removing their export tariffs on grains, reducing their price, and sold a bunch of soybeans to China, at a time when we would normally be selling to China. Soy prices are dropping further because of it. This gives China more leverage on us."

The proposal to provide Argentina billions in financial support has drawn scrutiny from farmers and their Congressional allies.

[image or embed]

-- Newsweek (@newsweek.com) Oct 1, 2025 at 8:54 AM