BQC Afternoon Comments April 7.2025

Geopolitics: President Trump issued a statement this morning that said if China follows through with the responding 34% tariffs they announced on Friday last week, then the US will respond with an additional 50% tariffs. That would bring the total increase to 104% (20%+34%+50%). “Fake News” of a 90-day pause in tariffs made the equity markets jump today with the Dow popping over 7% around 10am CST this morning due to the rumor. Seems when a small bit of good news hits, the markets is eager to react positively. Around noon central the EU commission proposed a 25% tariff on US goods in response to the steel duties. Additionally the UK Prime Minister Starmer talked with Singapore’s Prime Minister Wong on the phone today discussing their trade alliance. These new and reestablished relationships between leaders around the world will continue to develop against one common opponent, the USA. 
Ag Fundamentals: Export inspections were on par today with corn reporting 62.3M bushels (24.3M bushels of that went to Mexico and Columbia). Bean export inspections were reported at 29.6M bushels (22M bushels of that went to China and Egypt). Wheat shipments were 12M bushels which was about 5M less than the week prior. Winter Wheat crop conditions dropped -1% Good/Excellent since November but that is deceiving because if you look at the top 8 WW producing states, they averaged a -10% decline good/excellent. Today’s minimum temps are also below freezing in most of the countries top wheat growing areas and that will put more pressure on crop conditions. There will be fields in Arkansas and Southern Missouri that have flooded with recent rains as well. US corn planting progress is on pace for the first week of the year, but wetter than normal weather in the southern states has slowed progress to a halt in some fields.