Episode Number
10236
Episode Show Notes / Description
- Curt Kimmel, AgMarket.neet
- Mike Haag, Illinois Pork Producer
- Frayne Olson, North Dakota State University
- Mike Haag, Illinois Pork Producer
- Frayne Olson, North Dakota State University
Transcript
Todd Gleason: From the Land Grant University in Urbana, Champaign, Illinois, this is the Closing Market Report. It is the 8th day of December 2025. I’m Illinois Extension’s Todd Gleason. Coming up, we'll talk about the commodity markets with Curt Kimmel; he's at agmarket.net. We'll hear from this morning's press conference at the Eastern Illinois Food Bank, where the checkoff-funded associations in the state—pork producers, soybean association, and the corn growers—all came together to make an 11,000-pound donation of ground pork for the winter holiday season. In fact, they're making that donation to eight—that's right, eight—food banks across the state: more than 100,000 pounds of ground pork. And then we'll turn our attention to Frayne Olson; he is with North Dakota State University Extension. We won't talk exactly about the marketplace today, but we will delve deeply into policy and trade issues, and we'll do that right here on this Monday edition of the Closing Market Report from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world, online on demand at WILLAg.org, where right now you can sign up still for the Farm Assets Conference to be held in Bloomington Friday. It's an all-day event. Registration online at willag.org or for the Illinois Farm Economic Summits. They're coming up next Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in DeKalb, Peoria, and Mt. Vernon.
Ad: Todd Gleason's services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason: March corn for the day settled at $4.44. It was a penny lower on the afternoon. The May contract for the day at $4.51 1/2; the settlement price there down one. And December corn at $4.63 3/4, a quarter lower. January beans at $10.93 3/4, down 11 1/2 cents. The March at $11.05 3/4, down 10 1/4. And new crop November 2 1/2 lower at $11.01 1/2. Bean meal futures at $306.30, down $1.10. The bean oil 51 cents lower at 51.18. Soft red winter wheat in the March contract at $5.34 3/4, down one. The hard red winter March down 4 3/4 at $5.26 1/2. Live cattle futures 47 1/2 cents lower. Feeders down $3.40. And lean hogs for 100 pounds, up 12 1/2 cents; they finished at $82.40 for 100 pounds again. Crude oil at $58.82 a barrel, down $1.26. And the wholesale price of gasoline up 3 8/10 of a cent at $1.79 1/2. We're now joined by Curt Kimmel; he is with agmarket.net to take a look at these numbers. Hi Curt, thanks for being with us again today.
Curt Kimmel: Well, Todd, glad to be here again. Thank you.
Todd Gleason: Uh, so why is it that soybeans were off, uh, 10 to 11 cents for the day?
Curt Kimmel: Uh, just a combination of factors all coming together here. Uh, not real heavy volume, but uh, we're seeing some favorable weather forecasts for the Southern Hemisphere, particularly Brazil. Uh, Argentina is a little bit on the dry side, uh, off and on. Uh, when you look at the big picture, they're just getting started uh as they move into their uh growing season. Uh, they're fairly well planted in in the north, still wrapping up some planting in the southern part of the region. So we're just seeing uh no real weather concerns there. Once the calendar turns 2026, it might be a different story, but uh there's no urgency there at the moment. Uh, the other factor is basically we did sell 132,000 tons of beans to China, but we're just not seeing those huge amounts. And with the media reporting that uh this 12 million metric ton might not uh be fully uh uh complete or they have until end of February to uh do that, so uh there's just no real big demand uh outside of uh that 12 million metric tons. And plus too, we start getting past the first of the year, they start looking at the Southern Hemisphere. Uh, Southern Hemisphere's uh cheaper than US beans now. So even though we might pick up some Chinese business, we might lose some business from these other countries that we've picked up here uh over the last eight months or so. Uh, also too, probably the uh biggest thorn in the side is the technical picture. Uh, we moved to $11, the enthusiasm was there, we're going to keep moving higher since we moved above $11. And yeah, we did there for a little while, and all of a sudden pshhh, kind of ran out of gas in here. Uh, just cleared that what, 11.65 area, then back down. Uh, closing below $11 now is a sign that we could probably drift back into that gap area down in that uh 10.60, 10.70 area. So just all these uh little things coming together here just has the trade uh on the defensive here, Todd.
Todd Gleason: Are your expectations that USDA tomorrow during its World Ag Supply and Demand Estimate will make very many changes to those tables?
Curt Kimmel: Yeah, that's interesting. Uh, traditionally December is not a big uh market mover or a changer for the most part. Uh, that being said, we'll be blindsided by something, but the AgMarket team has come in here and basically left all numbers unchanged uh from last month. So we'll see what we have. I think most of the trade's eager to see what the January report is going to uh produce, but for the most part here, we're just unchanged uh from last month. Uh, the South American crop, there's ideas maybe that could be moved a little bit, but for the most part, we're still just kind of early in in their growing season too. So looking at corn stocks, 2.154; bean ending stocks, 290; wheat stocks, 901. Now, uh when you look at the world numbers, basically unchanged: 281 on corn, 122 on the beans, and uh 271 metric tons on the wheat. So we'll we'll see where it comes in.
Todd Gleason: Turn your attention to the livestock for a bit. Beef cattle have been on a bit of a roller coaster. What can you tell me about that marketplace today?
Curt Kimmel: Oh boy. Uh straight up, straight down, straight right back up. Uh, you know, fundamentally, we're still looking at some tight numbers. We're still seeing a situation where uh beef demand's robust. Uh, every once in a while, you know, we'll hear some talk about the Mexican border, we'll hear talk about uh meat tariffs, uh particularly uh South American tariffs and move the market a little bit. But for the most part, we're still looking at a tight situation. Until we open up that Mexican border, I think things are going to uh stay firm here for a little while. Uh, we're basically back in the consolidation pattern on the fats that we were here uh oh last uh oh October, November. Uh, we'll probably run into a little bit of resistance here. Feeders are trying to get up here, particularly in the January, fill that uh chart gap. So uh we'll see how it unfolds. There's going to be some resistance in that chart gap. Biggest surprise is hams. Traditionally hams move higher until now, but actually since August, they've been moving lower, lower, lower the, you know, the retail or the wholesale on hams. And so I think we're in a situation here, Todd, you might want to go out and buy a big ol' ham for Christmas.
Todd Gleason: Indeed. Hey, thanks much. We appreciate it. We'll talk with you again next week.
Curt Kimmel: Very good. Take care.
Todd Gleason: You too. That's Curt Kimmel. He is with agmarket.net, joined us on this Monday edition of the Closing Market Report that comes to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world, online on demand at WILLAg.org. Do visit our website or the FarmDocDaily website, either one, and you can sign up still for the Farm Assets Conference. That's coming up Friday of this week in Bloomington at the Agra Center. We have a great day-long event scheduled for you, including the crop scientist and the ag economist at the University of Illinois and a whole series of other folks—a couple of ag engineers and the leadership from the U of I in the Ag College. You'll want to make sure you get yourself scheduled for that one. And if not it or in addition to the Illinois Farm Economic Summits. Those are the following week or next week on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in DeKalb, East Peoria, and Mount Vernon. I will be traveling with the FarmDoc team for these half-day events. The cost for the Farm Assets Conference or the Illinois Farm Economic Summits, including your noon meal and all materials, is just $80. You should join and follow along all day long at the Farm Assets Conference or the Illinois Farm Economic Summits. I know your bankers and others will be in the audience. Uh, you as a farmer should be too. Again, sign up right now at willag.org. That's W-I-L-L-A-G dot O-R-G.
Music
Todd Gleason: Associations are donating ground pork to food banks. Illinois pork producers are donating over 100,000 pounds of ground pork to food banks this holiday season. Funding for the annual push is made possible by the Illinois Farmed Food Bank Program. It is a state initiative that connects farmers with food banks to provide fresh local food to those in need. Mike Haag sits on the Eastern Illinois Food Bank and he's a farmer from Pontiac, also a pork producer. I asked him about the importance of this Pork Power donation.
Mike Haag: Eastern Central Illinois, I think all the food banks across Illinois are receiving 11,000 pounds of pork this year from the Pork Power program. Um, I think 100,000 pounds uh overall donated from the pork producers and Illinois Corn and Illinois Soybeans that is going to be used throughout the state to help meet this uh increased demand uh from the neighbors needing these extremely valuable protein items.
Todd Gleason: This is one of the biggest donations you've ever made.
Mike Haag: It's the largest one we've ever made.
Todd Gleason: And it's going to eight different food banks across the state.
Mike Haag: Eight different food banks across the state. Uh at least 11,000 pounds for each one.
Todd Gleason: And what difference does it make in those communities do you suppose?
Mike Haag: Um, from my local perspective, I actually uh run a food bank in Pontiac, Illinois, and uh the need for whole uh for for protein and meat is just huge. That's that's what they come looking for is just those protein items. So I think it's going to really be beneficial all the way through all, I think there's 18 counties now that Eastern Illinois Food Bank feeds into. So...
Todd Gleason: Mike Haag is a pork producer and sits on the board of the Eastern Illinois Food Bank. IPPA is working with Feeding Illinois and members of the Illinois Corn Growers Association, Illinois Meat Processors Association, and the Illinois Soybean Checkoff programs to make the distributions. Ground pork will be delivered to eight food banks across the state, including the Eastern Illinois Food Bank, Central Illinois Food Bank, St. Louis Area Food Bank, Northern Illinois Food Bank, Midwest Food Bank, Greater Chicago Food Bank, the River Bend Food Bank, and the Tri-State Food Bank.
Music
Todd Gleason: We're now joined by Frayne Olson, agricultural economist at North Dakota State University with extension there. Hello Frayne, thank you very much. You and I had had a conversation about a book you read, uh written by Robert Lighthizer. He was the US Trade Representative uh during the first Trump administration. Uh and that discussion centered around translation and how very important it is, particularly when dealing with the Chinese. Can you tell me about your assessment of the book and what you learned from it?
Frayne Olson: Yeah, it it was actually fairly interesting 'cause one of the things that Mr. Lighthizer did was he he kind of recounted some of those stories and some of the discussions that went on, especially during that Phase One agreement that was signed between the United States and China to try and put an end to the first trade war. And and one of the things that he brought up very specifically was the initial trade, the negotiations for convenience was was prepared in English. And then once that was, you know, completed, then those that that agreement was then translated into Chinese. And one of the things that uh Mr. Lighthizer spent some time talking about was they they really, once that translation was completed, the the folks in the US really went through that Chinese translation with a fine-tooth comb 'cause not all of the the words that were used in the English version were directly translated into uh Chinese 'cause the use of terminology is slightly different. And so some of those phrases that were initially um like very "thou shalt" were translated into terms that were more flexible or or less uh, you know, less concrete. And so they spent some time even later on working on the exact Chinese translation to make sure that the Chinese words that were used in the contract represented what was shown in the US contract. And so I I suspect some of those translation differences uh were also came out in this framework agreement that was that was um um proposed between the United States and China in our current trade relations.
Todd Gleason: Yeah, so "thou shalt" uh got trans transitioned maybe to "we'll try."
Frayne Olson: Yeah, "we'll try."
Todd Gleason: "We'll, we'll try." And and then in the this recent round, uh it it clearly the translation is about uh calendar years and about marketing years, and they just mean different things in both countries.
Frayne Olson: Yes, 'cause the the New Year's New Year's celebrations in China has a different time or or clock schedule than they do here in the United States or even Europe. And so, you know, when we think about calendar years, you have to be whose calendar are we using? Is it going to be the Chinese calendar? Is it going to be the US calendar? You know, so there can be and and when we think about translations and those what what, you know, as an outsider looking in seems to be obvious, but when you're in the heat of the moment, you're trying to get some an agreement and you're trying to to actually negotiate some very important um economic terms, you know, sometimes those get overlooked. And and, you know, I'm not blaming anybody obviously for this, but it's it's very easy to kind of overlook this timing differential and and I do suspect some of that happened when when the framework agreement was first first discussed.
Todd Gleason: Yeah, so the the speed at which this moved, which uh under the Trump administration has generally been really fast, uh days or maybe a week or two rather than months or years with most trade negotiations, makes a huge difference I suppose over time.
Frayne Olson: It it really does. And and again, you know, when President Trump and President Xi first met and and discussed, they were, you know, again, President Trump used the term "it's a framework agreement." So the two leaders got together, they agreed in in kind of in principle, this is the way we want things to work. They agreed on what that this should look like and then obviously handed it off to some of their um some of their staff and to work out the specific details to get all of the the, you know, kind of the i's dotted and t's crossed for a formal agreement. And it's probably in that process then that some of this translation or some of this misunderstanding may have occurred. And and it's it's now becoming pretty clear from both the the US or the US side as well as the Chinese side that, you know, the the purchases that that China was trying to to get by the end of the year, air quotes "year," um looks like it'll be the end of February instead of the end of end of December. So that that does give the Chinese a little bit longer window to be able to purchase uh US soybeans and to be able to to meet the agreement.
Todd Gleason: One last question on the formalization of these trade negotiations. An agreement could be signed. What difference does it make that it's not approved by Congress?
Frayne Olson: Okay, so that's that's one of these issues that's now actually the Supreme Court is is reviewing. Um so there's this IEEPA. It's the International... it's one of the... I forget the exact title for it, but it's it's one of those provisions that Congress has given the President, some authority that the the Congress has given the President to unilaterally come in and make uh either put on tariffs or to negotiate some kind of trade agreement. And usually there has to be some kind of economic emergency. And and of course the question now with the reciprocal tariffs, the ones that uh President Trump had announced to basically all countries across the globe was did he legally did he overextend the boundaries? Was did he he misinterpret or or extend that boundaries of that particular clause um beyond what was intended by Congress? And of course it's it's worked its way through the court system. Um the Supreme Court has heard arguments of that. They have not um provided any kind of ruling yet. Uh we're still waiting to hear what that might look like. Um but that obviously could put a significant change or make make some additions or adaption adaptation to some of the the negotiations that ha are still ongoing. I think my understanding is that again, I'm not the legal expert, but my understanding is the contracts or the agreements that have been signed are still valid. It would be the ones that are still under negotiation that could be challenging.
Todd Gleason: Yeah, so IEEPA stands for the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The Supreme Court is in the midst of reviewing that, and we will have a decision from them at some point in the not too distant future, I suppose. Uh also, the negotiations, if a tariff is put in the negotiations, that's considered binding and legal. I had not heard about the differentiation between those that have been agreed to and signed and those that may be agreed to and signed. And and it'll be interesting to see how that pans out. I do have a follow-up question based on our discussion so far. Uh when you look forward uh and we're talking about soybeans uh and China trying to purchase them from the United States, why would they do so when they might be able to buy them cheaper from Brazil?
Frayne Olson: Well, okay, so there's a couple possibilities. Um one of them is in and and it may not be large volumes, but in international trade it's very it is common for let's say a a company or a country to purchase uh from a a US company or one of the international grain trading companies and say, "Look, give us give us your best bid for soybeans delivered to my port on on in this particular date range. We don't really care where it comes from," so this it's called optional origin. Which means it could be from the US PNW, it could be US Gulf, it could be um um Brazil, Santos, or it could be the Argentine River, and just say, "Look, you you figure out what makes the most sense but give us your best bid." And and so optional origin, they could have originally bid it thinking, "Well, we'll probably pull out of Brazil," but now it sounds like we may be able to pull out of the US instead. So that's a possibility. I don't think there's um 12 million metric ton of those kinds of contracts out there, but it it might be a difference, it might might make some of the difference. Um the other possibility is that because the the trade negotiations covered a really broad range of very big economic issues like uh rare earth metals and and technology and computer chips as well as as port fees and and a bunch of other things that that in this discussion the Chinese said, "Well, we're willing to concede and purchase some additional soybeans even though they might be a little bit more expensive to be able to get some concessions on the other side of that." So that's a possibility saying, "Well, you know, this is part of the negotiation. You give a little bit, I'll give a little bit, we'll come come to some kind of a compromise." Um and then the final one is it's it is possible and I know some people in the marketplace have been asking this question um that it the the Chinese government through the form of Sinograin, which is really their their the organization the entity within China that manages their government-owned inventories, that one of the ways that they were going to try and and kind of maximize the the political pressure was to be able to take some of their soybeans out of government-owned reserve and use them to try and supplement some of the soybeans that were needed um during these negotiations to to try and prove that look China doesn't have to buy US soybeans. And and if that was the case, that Sinograin may come back into the marketplace then and purchase some US soybeans to be able to refill some of these government-owned reserves. So it's not something that necessarily a private company in China or private crushing company in China would have to bear the cost for, but it is something then that the Chinese government could come in and say, "Okay, we're willing to pay a little bit higher price for US soybeans to be able to meet our commitments but then also to refill some of our government-owned inventories."
Todd Gleason: Thank you so much. I appreciate all the explanations.
Frayne Olson: All right. Well, it's always a pleasure visiting.
Todd Gleason: That's Frayne Olson, an agricultural economist at North Dakota State University and with extension located in Fargo. He joined us on this Monday edition of the Closing Market Report. It came to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world. Visit our website willag.org where you can still sign up for this Friday's Farm Assets Conference and next week's Illinois Farm Economic Summits. That second one is a little smaller in there, but there is an IFES webpage link. We'll be at the Agra Center Friday in Bloomington and then in DeKalb on Monday with the IFES or Illinois Farm Economic Summits. The FarmDoc team and I will travel then to Peoria for Tuesday, and Wednesday will be in Mount Vernon. Be sure to get yourself registered today. Time is quickly running out. You have a good afternoon. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason.
Ad: Todd Gleason's services are made available to WILL by University of Illinois Extension.
Todd Gleason: March corn for the day settled at $4.44. It was a penny lower on the afternoon. The May contract for the day at $4.51 1/2; the settlement price there down one. And December corn at $4.63 3/4, a quarter lower. January beans at $10.93 3/4, down 11 1/2 cents. The March at $11.05 3/4, down 10 1/4. And new crop November 2 1/2 lower at $11.01 1/2. Bean meal futures at $306.30, down $1.10. The bean oil 51 cents lower at 51.18. Soft red winter wheat in the March contract at $5.34 3/4, down one. The hard red winter March down 4 3/4 at $5.26 1/2. Live cattle futures 47 1/2 cents lower. Feeders down $3.40. And lean hogs for 100 pounds, up 12 1/2 cents; they finished at $82.40 for 100 pounds again. Crude oil at $58.82 a barrel, down $1.26. And the wholesale price of gasoline up 3 8/10 of a cent at $1.79 1/2. We're now joined by Curt Kimmel; he is with agmarket.net to take a look at these numbers. Hi Curt, thanks for being with us again today.
Curt Kimmel: Well, Todd, glad to be here again. Thank you.
Todd Gleason: Uh, so why is it that soybeans were off, uh, 10 to 11 cents for the day?
Curt Kimmel: Uh, just a combination of factors all coming together here. Uh, not real heavy volume, but uh, we're seeing some favorable weather forecasts for the Southern Hemisphere, particularly Brazil. Uh, Argentina is a little bit on the dry side, uh, off and on. Uh, when you look at the big picture, they're just getting started uh as they move into their uh growing season. Uh, they're fairly well planted in in the north, still wrapping up some planting in the southern part of the region. So we're just seeing uh no real weather concerns there. Once the calendar turns 2026, it might be a different story, but uh there's no urgency there at the moment. Uh, the other factor is basically we did sell 132,000 tons of beans to China, but we're just not seeing those huge amounts. And with the media reporting that uh this 12 million metric ton might not uh be fully uh uh complete or they have until end of February to uh do that, so uh there's just no real big demand uh outside of uh that 12 million metric tons. And plus too, we start getting past the first of the year, they start looking at the Southern Hemisphere. Uh, Southern Hemisphere's uh cheaper than US beans now. So even though we might pick up some Chinese business, we might lose some business from these other countries that we've picked up here uh over the last eight months or so. Uh, also too, probably the uh biggest thorn in the side is the technical picture. Uh, we moved to $11, the enthusiasm was there, we're going to keep moving higher since we moved above $11. And yeah, we did there for a little while, and all of a sudden pshhh, kind of ran out of gas in here. Uh, just cleared that what, 11.65 area, then back down. Uh, closing below $11 now is a sign that we could probably drift back into that gap area down in that uh 10.60, 10.70 area. So just all these uh little things coming together here just has the trade uh on the defensive here, Todd.
Todd Gleason: Are your expectations that USDA tomorrow during its World Ag Supply and Demand Estimate will make very many changes to those tables?
Curt Kimmel: Yeah, that's interesting. Uh, traditionally December is not a big uh market mover or a changer for the most part. Uh, that being said, we'll be blindsided by something, but the AgMarket team has come in here and basically left all numbers unchanged uh from last month. So we'll see what we have. I think most of the trade's eager to see what the January report is going to uh produce, but for the most part here, we're just unchanged uh from last month. Uh, the South American crop, there's ideas maybe that could be moved a little bit, but for the most part, we're still just kind of early in in their growing season too. So looking at corn stocks, 2.154; bean ending stocks, 290; wheat stocks, 901. Now, uh when you look at the world numbers, basically unchanged: 281 on corn, 122 on the beans, and uh 271 metric tons on the wheat. So we'll we'll see where it comes in.
Todd Gleason: Turn your attention to the livestock for a bit. Beef cattle have been on a bit of a roller coaster. What can you tell me about that marketplace today?
Curt Kimmel: Oh boy. Uh straight up, straight down, straight right back up. Uh, you know, fundamentally, we're still looking at some tight numbers. We're still seeing a situation where uh beef demand's robust. Uh, every once in a while, you know, we'll hear some talk about the Mexican border, we'll hear talk about uh meat tariffs, uh particularly uh South American tariffs and move the market a little bit. But for the most part, we're still looking at a tight situation. Until we open up that Mexican border, I think things are going to uh stay firm here for a little while. Uh, we're basically back in the consolidation pattern on the fats that we were here uh oh last uh oh October, November. Uh, we'll probably run into a little bit of resistance here. Feeders are trying to get up here, particularly in the January, fill that uh chart gap. So uh we'll see how it unfolds. There's going to be some resistance in that chart gap. Biggest surprise is hams. Traditionally hams move higher until now, but actually since August, they've been moving lower, lower, lower the, you know, the retail or the wholesale on hams. And so I think we're in a situation here, Todd, you might want to go out and buy a big ol' ham for Christmas.
Todd Gleason: Indeed. Hey, thanks much. We appreciate it. We'll talk with you again next week.
Curt Kimmel: Very good. Take care.
Todd Gleason: You too. That's Curt Kimmel. He is with agmarket.net, joined us on this Monday edition of the Closing Market Report that comes to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world, online on demand at WILLAg.org. Do visit our website or the FarmDocDaily website, either one, and you can sign up still for the Farm Assets Conference. That's coming up Friday of this week in Bloomington at the Agra Center. We have a great day-long event scheduled for you, including the crop scientist and the ag economist at the University of Illinois and a whole series of other folks—a couple of ag engineers and the leadership from the U of I in the Ag College. You'll want to make sure you get yourself scheduled for that one. And if not it or in addition to the Illinois Farm Economic Summits. Those are the following week or next week on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday in DeKalb, East Peoria, and Mount Vernon. I will be traveling with the FarmDoc team for these half-day events. The cost for the Farm Assets Conference or the Illinois Farm Economic Summits, including your noon meal and all materials, is just $80. You should join and follow along all day long at the Farm Assets Conference or the Illinois Farm Economic Summits. I know your bankers and others will be in the audience. Uh, you as a farmer should be too. Again, sign up right now at willag.org. That's W-I-L-L-A-G dot O-R-G.
Music
Todd Gleason: Associations are donating ground pork to food banks. Illinois pork producers are donating over 100,000 pounds of ground pork to food banks this holiday season. Funding for the annual push is made possible by the Illinois Farmed Food Bank Program. It is a state initiative that connects farmers with food banks to provide fresh local food to those in need. Mike Haag sits on the Eastern Illinois Food Bank and he's a farmer from Pontiac, also a pork producer. I asked him about the importance of this Pork Power donation.
Mike Haag: Eastern Central Illinois, I think all the food banks across Illinois are receiving 11,000 pounds of pork this year from the Pork Power program. Um, I think 100,000 pounds uh overall donated from the pork producers and Illinois Corn and Illinois Soybeans that is going to be used throughout the state to help meet this uh increased demand uh from the neighbors needing these extremely valuable protein items.
Todd Gleason: This is one of the biggest donations you've ever made.
Mike Haag: It's the largest one we've ever made.
Todd Gleason: And it's going to eight different food banks across the state.
Mike Haag: Eight different food banks across the state. Uh at least 11,000 pounds for each one.
Todd Gleason: And what difference does it make in those communities do you suppose?
Mike Haag: Um, from my local perspective, I actually uh run a food bank in Pontiac, Illinois, and uh the need for whole uh for for protein and meat is just huge. That's that's what they come looking for is just those protein items. So I think it's going to really be beneficial all the way through all, I think there's 18 counties now that Eastern Illinois Food Bank feeds into. So...
Todd Gleason: Mike Haag is a pork producer and sits on the board of the Eastern Illinois Food Bank. IPPA is working with Feeding Illinois and members of the Illinois Corn Growers Association, Illinois Meat Processors Association, and the Illinois Soybean Checkoff programs to make the distributions. Ground pork will be delivered to eight food banks across the state, including the Eastern Illinois Food Bank, Central Illinois Food Bank, St. Louis Area Food Bank, Northern Illinois Food Bank, Midwest Food Bank, Greater Chicago Food Bank, the River Bend Food Bank, and the Tri-State Food Bank.
Music
Todd Gleason: We're now joined by Frayne Olson, agricultural economist at North Dakota State University with extension there. Hello Frayne, thank you very much. You and I had had a conversation about a book you read, uh written by Robert Lighthizer. He was the US Trade Representative uh during the first Trump administration. Uh and that discussion centered around translation and how very important it is, particularly when dealing with the Chinese. Can you tell me about your assessment of the book and what you learned from it?
Frayne Olson: Yeah, it it was actually fairly interesting 'cause one of the things that Mr. Lighthizer did was he he kind of recounted some of those stories and some of the discussions that went on, especially during that Phase One agreement that was signed between the United States and China to try and put an end to the first trade war. And and one of the things that he brought up very specifically was the initial trade, the negotiations for convenience was was prepared in English. And then once that was, you know, completed, then those that that agreement was then translated into Chinese. And one of the things that uh Mr. Lighthizer spent some time talking about was they they really, once that translation was completed, the the folks in the US really went through that Chinese translation with a fine-tooth comb 'cause not all of the the words that were used in the English version were directly translated into uh Chinese 'cause the use of terminology is slightly different. And so some of those phrases that were initially um like very "thou shalt" were translated into terms that were more flexible or or less uh, you know, less concrete. And so they spent some time even later on working on the exact Chinese translation to make sure that the Chinese words that were used in the contract represented what was shown in the US contract. And so I I suspect some of those translation differences uh were also came out in this framework agreement that was that was um um proposed between the United States and China in our current trade relations.
Todd Gleason: Yeah, so "thou shalt" uh got trans transitioned maybe to "we'll try."
Frayne Olson: Yeah, "we'll try."
Todd Gleason: "We'll, we'll try." And and then in the this recent round, uh it it clearly the translation is about uh calendar years and about marketing years, and they just mean different things in both countries.
Frayne Olson: Yes, 'cause the the New Year's New Year's celebrations in China has a different time or or clock schedule than they do here in the United States or even Europe. And so, you know, when we think about calendar years, you have to be whose calendar are we using? Is it going to be the Chinese calendar? Is it going to be the US calendar? You know, so there can be and and when we think about translations and those what what, you know, as an outsider looking in seems to be obvious, but when you're in the heat of the moment, you're trying to get some an agreement and you're trying to to actually negotiate some very important um economic terms, you know, sometimes those get overlooked. And and, you know, I'm not blaming anybody obviously for this, but it's it's very easy to kind of overlook this timing differential and and I do suspect some of that happened when when the framework agreement was first first discussed.
Todd Gleason: Yeah, so the the speed at which this moved, which uh under the Trump administration has generally been really fast, uh days or maybe a week or two rather than months or years with most trade negotiations, makes a huge difference I suppose over time.
Frayne Olson: It it really does. And and again, you know, when President Trump and President Xi first met and and discussed, they were, you know, again, President Trump used the term "it's a framework agreement." So the two leaders got together, they agreed in in kind of in principle, this is the way we want things to work. They agreed on what that this should look like and then obviously handed it off to some of their um some of their staff and to work out the specific details to get all of the the, you know, kind of the i's dotted and t's crossed for a formal agreement. And it's probably in that process then that some of this translation or some of this misunderstanding may have occurred. And and it's it's now becoming pretty clear from both the the US or the US side as well as the Chinese side that, you know, the the purchases that that China was trying to to get by the end of the year, air quotes "year," um looks like it'll be the end of February instead of the end of end of December. So that that does give the Chinese a little bit longer window to be able to purchase uh US soybeans and to be able to to meet the agreement.
Todd Gleason: One last question on the formalization of these trade negotiations. An agreement could be signed. What difference does it make that it's not approved by Congress?
Frayne Olson: Okay, so that's that's one of these issues that's now actually the Supreme Court is is reviewing. Um so there's this IEEPA. It's the International... it's one of the... I forget the exact title for it, but it's it's one of those provisions that Congress has given the President, some authority that the the Congress has given the President to unilaterally come in and make uh either put on tariffs or to negotiate some kind of trade agreement. And usually there has to be some kind of economic emergency. And and of course the question now with the reciprocal tariffs, the ones that uh President Trump had announced to basically all countries across the globe was did he legally did he overextend the boundaries? Was did he he misinterpret or or extend that boundaries of that particular clause um beyond what was intended by Congress? And of course it's it's worked its way through the court system. Um the Supreme Court has heard arguments of that. They have not um provided any kind of ruling yet. Uh we're still waiting to hear what that might look like. Um but that obviously could put a significant change or make make some additions or adaption adaptation to some of the the negotiations that ha are still ongoing. I think my understanding is that again, I'm not the legal expert, but my understanding is the contracts or the agreements that have been signed are still valid. It would be the ones that are still under negotiation that could be challenging.
Todd Gleason: Yeah, so IEEPA stands for the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The Supreme Court is in the midst of reviewing that, and we will have a decision from them at some point in the not too distant future, I suppose. Uh also, the negotiations, if a tariff is put in the negotiations, that's considered binding and legal. I had not heard about the differentiation between those that have been agreed to and signed and those that may be agreed to and signed. And and it'll be interesting to see how that pans out. I do have a follow-up question based on our discussion so far. Uh when you look forward uh and we're talking about soybeans uh and China trying to purchase them from the United States, why would they do so when they might be able to buy them cheaper from Brazil?
Frayne Olson: Well, okay, so there's a couple possibilities. Um one of them is in and and it may not be large volumes, but in international trade it's very it is common for let's say a a company or a country to purchase uh from a a US company or one of the international grain trading companies and say, "Look, give us give us your best bid for soybeans delivered to my port on on in this particular date range. We don't really care where it comes from," so this it's called optional origin. Which means it could be from the US PNW, it could be US Gulf, it could be um um Brazil, Santos, or it could be the Argentine River, and just say, "Look, you you figure out what makes the most sense but give us your best bid." And and so optional origin, they could have originally bid it thinking, "Well, we'll probably pull out of Brazil," but now it sounds like we may be able to pull out of the US instead. So that's a possibility. I don't think there's um 12 million metric ton of those kinds of contracts out there, but it it might be a difference, it might might make some of the difference. Um the other possibility is that because the the trade negotiations covered a really broad range of very big economic issues like uh rare earth metals and and technology and computer chips as well as as port fees and and a bunch of other things that that in this discussion the Chinese said, "Well, we're willing to concede and purchase some additional soybeans even though they might be a little bit more expensive to be able to get some concessions on the other side of that." So that's a possibility saying, "Well, you know, this is part of the negotiation. You give a little bit, I'll give a little bit, we'll come come to some kind of a compromise." Um and then the final one is it's it is possible and I know some people in the marketplace have been asking this question um that it the the Chinese government through the form of Sinograin, which is really their their the organization the entity within China that manages their government-owned inventories, that one of the ways that they were going to try and and kind of maximize the the political pressure was to be able to take some of their soybeans out of government-owned reserve and use them to try and supplement some of the soybeans that were needed um during these negotiations to to try and prove that look China doesn't have to buy US soybeans. And and if that was the case, that Sinograin may come back into the marketplace then and purchase some US soybeans to be able to refill some of these government-owned reserves. So it's not something that necessarily a private company in China or private crushing company in China would have to bear the cost for, but it is something then that the Chinese government could come in and say, "Okay, we're willing to pay a little bit higher price for US soybeans to be able to meet our commitments but then also to refill some of our government-owned inventories."
Todd Gleason: Thank you so much. I appreciate all the explanations.
Frayne Olson: All right. Well, it's always a pleasure visiting.
Todd Gleason: That's Frayne Olson, an agricultural economist at North Dakota State University and with extension located in Fargo. He joined us on this Monday edition of the Closing Market Report. It came to you from Illinois Public Media. It is public radio for the farming world. Visit our website willag.org where you can still sign up for this Friday's Farm Assets Conference and next week's Illinois Farm Economic Summits. That second one is a little smaller in there, but there is an IFES webpage link. We'll be at the Agra Center Friday in Bloomington and then in DeKalb on Monday with the IFES or Illinois Farm Economic Summits. The FarmDoc team and I will travel then to Peoria for Tuesday, and Wednesday will be in Mount Vernon. Be sure to get yourself registered today. Time is quickly running out. You have a good afternoon. I'm University of Illinois Extension's Todd Gleason.