⁍ Private exporters sold 1.937 million tonnes of corn to China for delivery in the 2020/21 marketing year.

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⁍ That topped the previous biggest deal to China of 1.762 million tonnes, reported just two weeks ago.

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⁍ The recent purchases place China closer to the ambitious $36.5 billion target for imports of U.S. farm goods this year.

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– China may be in a trade war with the US, but that didn’t stop it from booking its biggest-ever purchase of corn from the US. The US Agriculture Department said Thursday that private exporters sold 1.937 million tons of corn to China for delivery in the 2020/21 marketing year, reports Reuters. That topped the previous biggest deal to China of 1.762 million tons, reported just two weeks ago. In a separate report, the USDA said soybean sales to China rose to 1.925 million tons in the week ended July 23, the biggest weekly total since Nov. 17, 2016. The recent purchases place China closer to the ambitious $36.5 billion target for imports of US farm goods this year set in the Phase 1 trade deal. Analysts and traders say that target may be achievable, but it is looking like a stretch. The corn sale reported on Thursday was valued at around $325 million, based on new-crop prices at the US Gulf. China’s American farm purchases amounted to $6 billion through May—the latest data available—up just 9.1% from the same period in 2019 and 31% below 2017’s level. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also called the Chinese Communist Party ‘the central threat of our times.’ Rising tensions have already slowed Chinese purchases of US soybeans this week, US Soybean Export Council CEO Jim Sutter said during a virtual town hall with agriculture leaders on Thursday, citing sources in China. “They’re worried that there could be a disruption in the implementation of the Phase 1 agreement. That uncertainty is not good for future purchases,” Sutter said.