Tariff talk, weather and planting progress were the news this past week within the grain markets. All three of them are pulling the market in different directions at different times. That seems to be the theme lately, especially with Tariffs where it has been day to day on what’s going to come next. May and July corn ended the week 3 and 5 cents lower respectively while December futures closed 10 cents lower. The funds ended the week long 136,414 corn contracts and long 56,245 soybean contracts.

President trump told TIME magazine in an interview that U.S. – China talks were taking place on tariffs and that some progress could be seen very soon. China has apparently exempted some U.S. imports from its 125% tariffs and is asking firms to identify critical goods they need levy-free, according to businesses that have been notified. The U.S. and Japan continue to talk about a trade agreement with Japan, considering increasing its Ag imports from the U.S., but no definitive quantity has been shared.

The U.S. continues to be the worlds largest exporter of grains as prices remain competitive to South America and should remain that way until the Argentina or Brazilian crops start to move to market. By early June I would expect to see a shift in buying move to South American grains, especially if we are still dealing with tariffs or the talk of them.

Last Monday’s crop progress report showed national corn planting progress at 12% complete, up from 4% last week and 2% ahead of the five-year average. Soybean planting rose from 2% to 8% and is ahead of the five-year average of 5%. The consensus is that these numbers were short of the actual percentage planted due to the holiday and not all the data being gathered. I am expecting a significant jump this week with favorable weather across much of the country last week.

The forecast for the FH of May looks pretty good – as such, fears that the crop won’t get in the ground will fade.  Every year we go through a checklist: 1. Acres to be planted 2. Planting completion 3. Pollination 4. Maturity 5. Harvest.  We are approximately 3-4 weeks away from completing the first 2 items on that checklist, then we will wait about 6-8 weeks before we can mark off pollination.

We continue to see basis strengthening across the U.S. I believe the current strength is a not a result of the grain not being there, but rather the result of a lack of logistics to move it. The farmer is busy in the field and doesn’t have time to move his stored grain and plant this year’s crop regardless of what the market is telling him to do. A stronger basis is getting commercials and some producers to the market to quench the processor needs until planting is complete. I think we will see basis weaken a touch once the planting is complete (early to mid-June)

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In a shortened week of trade, we saw corn futures pullback with May and July futures closing 8 and 7 cents lower respectively. December futures managed to close 2 cents higher on the heels of a slightly slower planting pace this past week.

US corn planting progress came in at 4% complete last week (4/13/25) and was double the previous week’s pace but behind 6% last year, 5% on average, and the 6% trade estimate. Soybean plantings were initially reported at 2%, even with the five-year average but behind 3% both LY and as expected. I look for Monday nights (4/21/25) progress to show a nice bump in corn planting with reports of significant progress across Iowa and Nebraska last week.

We are halfway through the pollination period for Brazil’s Safrinha corn crop. There were concerns about dry weather, especially in the state of Mato Grosso, but the rain came at the right time. The next 14-day forecast is ideal for this time of year. Moderate temperatures with above-average rainfall have been seen in three of the four major producing states since the beginning of the critical pollination timeframe. April has had the most positive weather since the season began. This is overall supportive of the estimated trendline yield.

There continues to be a lot of news around tariffs, but it had very little impact on the grain markets this past week. Japan and the US continue to negotiate face to face with President Trump calling the talks productive. Trump also highlighted his phone calls with the president of Mexico as productive. The tariffs haven’t impacted the top two destinations for US corn so far. I feel that if Mexico is willing to negotiate, we will continue to see decent corn exports, at least until the South American crop hits the pipeline.

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The markets were on fire this past week fueled by a USDA report and postponed tariffs. May and July futures each ended the week 30 cents higher while December futures closed 17 higher. The funds are rolling back into the commodities as they ended the week long 161,184 corn contracts and are now long 2,666 soybean contracts. This is the first time the funds have been long soybeans in over a month.

On Wednesday President Trump abruptly paused part of his tariff assault on global trading partners, dialing back duty rates on goods from many countries for 90 days to allow room to negotiate lower trade barriers. One country he didn’t dial back was China where he raised tariffs to 125%. China countered his tariffs by implementing their own tariff on US goods to 125% which resulted in Trump increasing their tariff to 145%. I look for this game of chicken to continue until someone gets caught without something they need from the other because their consumers can’t afford it.

On Thursday the USDA released their April Crop Production report. There were not many surprises, but we did see ending stocks decrease due to adjustments in exports that we have witnessed over the last few months. They increased the export program by 100 million bushels in this report. Even with this increase there are many traders that feel it could be increased another 100-125 million bushels. The question remains if our export program has been front loaded due to the tariffs. My opinion is that we will not continue at the current pace and once the South American stocks are more readily available, we will see a sharp decline.

USDA 2024/25 US Carryout (billion bushels)

USDA 2024/25 World Carryout (Million Tonnes)

We witnessed this past week that any sign of hope that tariffs will be reduced is immediately met by sharp upside price action. I think this is a sign of what is possible if President Trump can pull this off. I don’t know how long and painful the process might be, but the outlook is bearish if he is able to come to agreements with our major trade partners. We could see increased exports and much stronger markets.

The lower carryout in last Thursday’s report has resulted in a stocks/use ratio of 9.6%. Historically anytime we drop below 10% stocks to use, the CBOT trades in the five-dollar range. Look for the market to continue its climb to this level in the May and July contracts.

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The corn market found some strength last week on the heels of an acreage report larger than the estimates and the implementation of tariffs.  May and July futures ended the week 7 cents higher while December finished the week 4 cents higher. Following the updated CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission) report on Tuesday, the funds are now long 156,433 corn and short 17,681 soybean contracts. The length in corn is triple their position from a week ago indicating that the funds appear to be putting money back into the grain markets following tariff news.

The tariffs went on last Wednesday with 10% going against all goods coming into the US from all countries and China being hit with a 54% tariff on all goods entering the US.  Among close U.S. allies, the European Union was targeted with a 20% rate, Japan with 24%, South Korea with 25% and Taiwan with 32%. Even some tiny territories and uninhabited islands in the Antarctic were hit by tariffs, according to a list posted by the White House.

On Friday China announced additional tariffs of 34% on U.S. goods, the most serious escalation in a trade war with President Trump that triggered a global stock market collapse. China added 11 entities to the “unreliable entity” list, which allows Beijing to take punitive actions against foreign entities, including firms linked to arms sales to democratically governed Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory. The S&P 500, Nasdaq, crude oil and soybeans all fell hard following this news. I believe corn remained firm because the US does not export much corn to China.

On Monday the USDA released their March 1^st grain stocks and the Prospective plantings reports. Stocks for corn, soybeans and wheat all came in as expected with both soybeans and wheat having larger stocks than a year ago. Planting intentions for corn came in 1 million acres above the average guess, but near the 95-million-acre level that I believed the market was trading.

March 1 Stocks (Billion Bushels)

USDA 2025 Prospective Plantings

We will get the April Crop Production report on Thursday. We are not expecting many surprises here unless the government decides to make some guesses about exports in response to tariffs.

USDA 2024/25 US Carryout (billion bushels)

USDA 2024/25 World Carryout (Million Tonnes)

With the large March planting intentions number behind us, traders will begin to monitor US weather for the upcoming planting season and continue to monitor the daily tariff discussions. We will begin to get our weekly crop progress reports on Monday afternoon that will give us an indication of how planting is progressing in the US. Look for the first few weeks of this report to be quiet, but things should ramp up after Easter weekend in the Midwest.

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Traders continued to exit their positions in the corn market as they position themselves for a big week of reports and tariff news that will impact the markets. May and July futures were down 11 and 12 cents respectively while December futures ended the week 8 lower. The funds ended the week long 57,920 corn contracts and short 31,821 soybean contracts.

On Monday at 11:00 AM, the USDA will release its March 1^st grain stocks and the much-anticipated planting intentions. Estimates are listed below.

March 1 Stocks (Billion Bushels)

USDA 2025 Prospective Plantings

I look for stocks in both corn and soybeans could be bullish while the acres should come in as expected. If there is going to be a much larger corn acre print, I don’t think it happens until June when we can see how planting has progressed. It appears that the market is already trading 94-94.5-million-acres of corn, so something north of that would result in lower prices.

On Wednesday the tariffs that have been postponed twice are set to begin. Will they be implemented as threatened, or will we see another postponement? Until we can remove some of the uncertainty, I look for traders to continue to move to the sideline in a “Risk Off” move.

Its lining up to be an exciting week in the markets with the end of a month, end of a quarter and one of the largest crop reports of the year. If that wasn’t enough, the Trump Administration will keep us on our toes with reciprocal tariffs, ocean freight tariffs, imported car tariffs.

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