MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US supplants Brazil as leading supplier of soybeans to the European Union

Imports from Brazil dropped to a 40% share of the bloc's roughly 35 million ton annual import market for the animal feed staple.

The United States has supplanted Brazil as the European Union's top supplier of soybeans since a deal in July with President Donald Trump to avert a trade war, according to EU data seen by Reuters on Thursday.

In the 12 weeks to mid-September, U.S. soybeans accounted for 52% of imports to the EU, rising 133% compared with the same period last year to 1.47 million tons. The United States had just 25% of the market in the same period of 2017.

Imports from Brazil dropped to a 40% share of the bloc's roughly 35 million ton annual import market for the animal feed staple.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker pledgedin a White House deal in late July that Europeans would buy more U.S. soy as part of a package to avert threatened tariffs from Washington on U.S. imports of EU cars.

The EU executive has been collating frequent new import data to prove it is keeping its side of the bargain - even though the trends are largely the result of price movements in world markets. The EU had no previous barriers to U.S. soybeans.

In June, China largely stopped buying U.S. soybeans in retaliation for trade measures Trump targeted at Beijing -- prompting European farmers to switch to buying cheaper U.S. soy.

U.S. and EU negotiators have begun discussions on how to free up some trade in what Washington wants to be a bigger deal that would cut the U.S. deficit in merchandise trade.