China's Ministry of Commerce released a 1,619-line tariff exemption list on Monday covering U.S. meat, corn, dairy and soybean derivatives, but left whole soybeans facing a continued 10% additional import duty under a $30 billion reciprocal package with Washington.

The agreement, announced late last week following a U.S.-China summit in Washington, removes levies on a wide range of farm goods flowing westbound across the Pacific. Whole soybeans — historically China's largest U.S. agricultural import by volume — remain outside the carve-out.

What's in and what's out of the exemption list?

The list spans meat, corn, dairy and soybean by-products including soyoil and soymeal. Whole soybeans sit beyond the carve-out and will still attract the additional 10% tariff imposed during the 2025 trade war.

That exclusion matters for bulk and containerized agricultural shippers. U.S. soybean exports to China peaked above 30 million tonnes annually before the dispute, and the commodity typically loads at Pacific Northwest terminals in Seattle, Tacoma and Portland for discharge at Chinese ports including Dalian, Shanghai and Ningbo.

Why are soybeans still sidelined?

Beijing has treated soybean purchases as political leverage throughout negotiations. Earlier this year China committed to buy 25 million tonnes of U.S. soybeans per year through 2028 under a trade truce, but actual volumes have lagged that target.

China's commerce ministry said on Monday a two-month extension to the truce will give both sides room to clear remaining hurdles — a procedural concession that nonetheless keeps soybean tariffs in place.

What does the reciprocal deal cover?

The U.S. side will cut tariffs on 77 Chinese product lines worth up to $30 billion, including plastics and electronics. The deal establishes a bilateral trade board in the coming months; its first agenda item is the reciprocal $30 billion reduction.

For container lines — CMA CGM, MSC, Maersk, COSCO, ONE and Evergreen dominate the trans-Pacific — the partial exemption is unlikely to move box volumes in the near term, since the dry-bulk trade that anchors soybean flows runs primarily on handy-size and panamax tonnage out of the U.S. Gulf and PNW.

What are the commercial consequences?

Shippers of U.S. meat, dairy and corn stand to gain from lower landed costs and a thinner customs trail. Forwarders with reefer exposure should expect modest demand uplift on westbound China lanes, though the volume base is small compared with soybean flows.

Soybeans typically fill panamax bulkers at roughly 55,000-60,000 tonnes per vessel. A sustained 10% tariff narrows the landed-cost advantage for U.S. origins against Brazilian competitors, which over the past three years have absorbed most of the volume China has diverted away from U.S. ports.

The U.S. side of the deal — tariffs lifted on plastics and electronics across 77 lines — should support eastbound container demand from Shanghai, Ningbo and Shenzhen. Reefer and dry-box operators on backhaul lanes from China to Los Angeles and Long Beach stand to benefit most from any pickup in electronics and plastics volumes.

What should carriers and forwarders watch next?

The board of trade's early decisions on reciprocal tariff cuts will set the tone for 2026 contract negotiations on trans-Pacific agricultural freight. Any movement on whole soybeans — even a partial carve-out — would have an outsized impact on dry-bulk tonne-mile demand out of the U.S. Gulf and Pacific Northwest.

For now, the truce extension buys negotiators time, but soybean shippers and their liner and bulker partners will look to the board's first rulings as the next concrete signal on tonnage flows and lane pricing into the first quarter of 2026.