White House in a Bind as Soybean Sales to China Plummet to Zero

Friday, October 03, 2025

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."

Posted by reinheitsgebot at 11:33 AM | 24 COMMENTS | permalink

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

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

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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 bankruptcy-prone orange nonce got steamrolled by Xi yet again.

#1 | Posted by reinheitsgebot at 2025-09-30 01:35 PM

Another view ...

OpEd: Dennis Jett: Why the White House bailed out Argentina, and subverted our farmers
www.post-gazette.com

... Things like large currency swaps are supposed to be handled by the Federal Reserve.

And stabilizing economies is the reason the International Monetary Fund was established after World War II. The thinking was that avoiding economic troubles would help prevent the political instability that made wars more likely. Argentina is already the country most in debt to the IMF, which approved $20 billion in aid in April of this year. Apparently, that was not enough.

Why did the Trump administration decide to take such extraordinary measures now? Like many things in Washington, their reason could be either political or personal profit, or both.

Not surprisingly the value of Argentine bonds rose significantly after Bessent's announcement. According to a story by Judd Legum on the Popular Information website, one person who is heavily invested in those bonds is Rob Citrone.

Citrone is a billionaire hedge fund manager who grew up in Pittsburgh and is part owner of the Steelers. He is also a close friend and former colleague of Bessent from the days when they both worked for George Soros, the billionaire supporter of leftist causes that the right loves to hate.

Legum's article also pointed out that just "days before Bessent's announcement Citrone purchased more Argentine bonds." ...

[emphasis mine]