Trump threatens China with cooking oil embargo as soybean spat escalates

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday called China "economically hostile" for not buying American soybeans and threatened to halt imports of cooking oil and other products from the country in retaliation.

"I believe that China purposefully not buying our soybeans and causing difficulty for our Soybean Farmers, is an Economically Hostile Act," Trump posted on social media, the latest in a series of escalating moves since he threatened on Friday to slap an additional 100 per cent tariff on all imports from China.

"We are considering terminating business with China having to do with Cooking Oil, and other elements of Trade, as retribution," he said. "As an example, we can easily produce Cooking Oil ourselves; we don't need to purchase it from China."

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Along with animal feed, cooking oil is one of the main products that soybeans yield. While the US imports most of its cooking oil from Canada in the form of canola, China is a large supplier to the US of used cooking oil (UCO) that is used in biofuels like ethanol.

A soybean farmer inspects a soybean field that is ready for harvesting in Cordova, Maryland, the US, last week. Photo: AP alt=A soybean farmer inspects a soybean field that is ready for harvesting in Cordova, Maryland, the US, last week. Photo: AP>

China's Ministry of Commerce took many by surprise when it announced expansive export controls imposed on rare earth elements, essential raw materials in the manufacture of hi-tech products, prompting Trump to retaliate.

Earlier on Tuesday, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a CNBC interview that these new controls have derailed efforts by the two sides to settle trade differences. This has prompted Trump to hit imports from China with tariffs across the board, along with products from a wide array of other countries.

"They are the ones who have chosen to make this major escalation," Greer said. "Our agreement was we're going to keep our tariffs low if you keep the rare earths flowing.

"They're now saying that they're going to control more rare earths and downstream products. And so it makes sense that, you know, we can raise our tariffs."

As the previous administration under President Joe Biden aimed to transition towards green transportation by providing incentives to support the industry, US demand for used cooking oil surged.

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The spike turned the US from a net exporter of UCO until 2021 into a net importer since 2022. US imports surpassed 1.36 million metric tons last year, up from about 400,000 metric tons in 2022.

China became the top supplier to the US in 2023, despite accounting for less than one per cent of exports in previous years.

Earlier, Europe was a major buyer of Chinese UCO. Starting mid-2023, demand from Europe declined following an EU investigation into artificially low prices for the product.

Trade tensions have escalated as Beijing has yet to place any orders for US soybeans this year, despite Chinese buyers accounting for more than 40 per cent of US soybean exports in recent years.

US farmers, anxiously awaiting orders, are seeing their harvests face falling prices and the loss of long-standing customers, as Chinese demand shifts to Argentina and Brazil.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2025 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

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