MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Argentina imports 120.000 tons of soy-beans from United States
The USDA in its daily export sale reporting system said 120,000 tons of U.S. soybeans were sold to Argentina for delivery during the 2018-19 marketing season Argentina, the world’s third biggest soy producer, booked its largest purchase of U.S. soybeans in 20 years on Tuesday after drought cut its harvest, forcing crushers there to turn to imports. The surprise move pushed Chicago soybean futures to a one-month high, in the latest development to upend global soy trading after top buyer China last week proposed tariffs on U.S. imports amid an intensifying Washington-Beijing trade dispute.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture in its daily export sale reporting system said 120,000 tons of U.S. soybeans were sold to Argentina for delivery during the 2018-19 marketing season that starts on September first, the biggest such sale since 1997.
The USDA separately forecast Argentina’s soybean harvest at 40 million tons, the smallest since 2009’s crop of 32 million tons. Argentina is the world’s top exporter of soy-meal and soy-oil.
“We’re very rapidly seeing a realignment in soybean trading,” said international agricultural trade and policy consultant John Baize, president of John C. Baize and Associates.
Baize said Argentina could import 500,000 to 1 million tons of U.S. soybeans this year.
Bulk imports of U.S. soybeans are rare, although Argentina typically brings in some soybeans from neighboring Paraguay.
Argentina will need soybeans by October, a time when crushers usually lack sufficient domestic supplies, and the crushers want to make sure they have enough after this year’s drought.
Argentina exporter chamber spokesman Andrés Alcaraz said the U.S. soybeans sold this week would be crushed and exported as soy-meal and soy-oil.
“The industry already had a lot of idled capacity and now it is going to have even more because it does not have grain,” Ezequiel de Freijo, chief economist at Argentina’s Rural Society producers’ group, said of soybeans.
European buyers have also scooped up cargoes of U.S. soybeans in recent days. U.S. soybeans have been a relative bargain due to surging prices in Brazil.
China, which buys about two-thirds of global soy exports, was favoring Brazilian supplies and threatening to impose tariffs on U.S. soybean imports to retaliate against U.S. tariffs on China’s electronics and other goods.
Soybean futures on the Chicago Board of Trade initially plunged 5% after China announced the proposed tariffs but have recovered all of those declines.
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Read all commentsSo much for the 'supermarket of the world' that Macri said Argentina would become.
Apr 13th, 2018 - 10:06 pm 0Buying soy from the U.S. while not an Argentine lemon and not a drop of biodiesel have been exported to that country is but another affront of a president too eager to please the U.S. and (western) Europe.
Even Macri can't control the weather, EM. I suppose CFK would have banned imports of soy and to hell with the industries that process it.
Apr 13th, 2018 - 10:34 pm 0@DT
Apr 14th, 2018 - 04:33 pm 0“Even Macri can't control the weather, EM.”
I am reassured. If Macri had also control over the weather, Argentina would be irreparably doomed.
Anyway. Supposing what a government that ceased to exist over two years ago would have done is a bit adventurous.
Instead, let's take a look at current realities:
After the visit of U.S. VP Mike Pence in August 2017, it was announced that Argentina was open to pork meat imports from the U.S.
And Argentina's Agriculture secretary Ricardo Negri said imported pork would not threat local producers.
Importing pork was part of negotiations towards opening the U.S. doors to Argentina lemons and beef meat.
“The United States in May reopened its market to Argentina lemons for the first time in 15 years. However, Argentina has yet to export one lemon to the United States,” noted CNBC on April 13.
“The United States upheld steep duties on imports of biodiesel from Argentina, penalties that brought such shipments to a virtual halt,” the same story noted.
So what is the big picture? Not flattering.
According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, “U.S. goods and services trade with Argentina totaled an estimated $24.2 billion in 2016. Exports were $17.3 billion; imports were $6.9 billion.”
https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/americas/argentina
What Trade Economics says about it?
“Argentina’s trade deficit widened sharply to USD 903 million in February of 2018, compared to a USD 217 million gap a year before and to a USD 464 million deficit expected by consensus. It was the fourteenth straight monthly deficit and the largest for any February.”
Nobody can say Macri is not a good fellow. After all, he is helping big time the United States' economic recovery.
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