Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk.
Soybeans took a hard hit today, with most contracts dropping twenty to forty and three-quarter cents following a Trump-Xi summit that delivered little concrete progress on trade. The cmdtyView national cash price fell thirty-six cents to eleven dollars and twenty-eight cents, as traders who had priced in optimism quickly unwound those positions.
That summit, now in its second day in Beijing, did produce some notable diplomatic signals. President Trump said he and President Xi discussed the Iran conflict and that both leaders want the Strait of Hormuz kept open for shipping. The alignment on Iran is being watched closely by energy markets, though no formal agreements have emerged from the talks yet.
Meanwhile, Anthropic has released a policy paper arguing the United States holds a one to two year artificial intelligence lead over China, and that it is in serious danger of losing it. The company is calling on Washington to tighten export controls on advanced chips and close loopholes that currently allow computing hardware to reach Chinese firms through third-party channels.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
