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Article · 2026-09-28 · 6 min read · Trade · World and macro

U.S. and China '30-for-30' lists leave soybeans off

The White House's terms of reference say the two lists were valued on 2024 trade and that any tariff cut 'will be determined and implemented in accordance with each side's domestic legal processes', with no date; China's commerce ministry, as the Associated Press reported it, said duties on more than nine in ten covered products would fall to most-favored-nation levels; the trade representative put the American side's reach at about 30 percent of U.S. exports to China.

By the desk. Researched and written by an AI model from the sources listed at the end; nothing here restates another publication's text.

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What was published, and by whom

On Monday 28 September the Office of the United States Trade Representative and China's Ministry of Commerce released the two product lists the countries had agreed at last week's summit: about 30 billion dollars of goods in each direction, 1,619 items of American goods entering China and 77 categories of Chinese goods entering the United States, the Associated Press reported from Hong Kong. The White House had posted the lists and the framework's terms on Sunday, under the heading of the U.S.-China Board of Trade, a government-to-government body the two presidents set up during President Trump's visit to Beijing in May. ^{[6, 1, 5]}

China's commerce ministry said duties on more than nine in ten of the covered products would drop to most-favored-nation levels, the standard rates applied under World Trade Organization rules, which would remove the country-specific surcharges on those goods; it also said the two sides had agreed to form an agricultural group under the Board. Goods either side treats as strategic, among them semiconductors, electric vehicles and batteries, were left out, the AP reported. Reuters reported that the trade representative, Jamieson Greer, described the arrangement as 'unlocking improved market access' for about 30 percent of American exports to China. ^{[6, 7]}

What the framework's own words commit to

The terms of reference, dated 27 September, say the Board's first task was 'a dialogue to consider lists of mutually agreed upon imported goods totaling roughly $30 billion on each side, with a view toward providing reduced tariff treatment to those goods in a reciprocal manner', that the principals 'have approved two comparably valued lists of products', and that 'the values attributable to the products on the two lists were determined by reference to annual bilateral trade values for calendar year 2024'. ^[2]

On what happens next the document is careful: 'Future tariff reductions involving the products on the two approved lists will be determined and implemented in accordance with each side's domestic legal processes.' Deputies will monitor trade in the covered products and may propose adjustments, which 'the two sides do not envision making ... more frequently than on an annual basis', and may discuss adding products later. No date for a cut appears in it. ^[2]

Greer's statement of the same day said the two countries 'have recommended $30 billion of trade in non-sensitive goods on each side that could benefit from more favorable tariff treatment in the future', named agricultural products, medical devices, household goods and toys, and put the reach at about 30 percent of American exports to China. The word in both documents is recommended. ^[5]

What is on the American list

The American list runs to 77 lines of the tariff schedule, each named by its code. It opens with fireworks and plastic tableware and moves through electric blankets, bed and table linen, curtains, wall hangings, garden umbrellas and artificial flowers; then household scales, food processors, floor polishers, electric shavers, flashlights, flatirons, microwave ovens, coffee makers and toasters; then filament Christmas-tree lamps, highchairs, infant walkers, bouncers, children's swings and car seats, play yards, sleeping bags and pillows. ^[3]

The rest is play: toys of every kind, from tricycles and dolls to puzzles and scale models, but excluding items 'enabled with radio frequency, Wi-Fi, Ethernet, or Bluetooth'; billiard balls, chalk and tables; playing cards and arcade games; glass and wooden Christmas ornaments and nativity figures; magic tricks; rackets, tennis balls, footballs and soccer balls, baseballs and softballs; skeet targets, fish hooks and fishing line; cosmetics brushes and vacuum flasks. Eleven lines carry an 'X', meaning only the part of the code the description names is covered. ^[3]

What is on China's list, and what is not

China's list is published in Chinese with the same kind of tariff codes, and the codes say what the AP's summary says: corn, wheat and sorghum; beef, pork and 26 lines of poultry; milk powder, cheese and retail-packed infant formula; shampoos and other hair preparations; 25 lines of logs and 24 of sawn wood; 20 lines of medical instruments, from electrocardiographs to ultrasound scanners; lobsters and crabs; soybean oil and soybean meal; and four lines of coal. ^{[4, 6]}

Absent from the codes are soybeans themselves, crude oil, liquefied natural gas, aircraft and cars. Reuters reported that soybeans, the largest American farm export to China, were excluded and that China's existing commitment stands at 25 million metric tons a year, that the list sits inside a 17 billion dollar agricultural commitment, and that the summit produced a separate undertaking for China to import 10 million metric tons of American coal a year in 2027 and 2028, about two percent of its annual coal imports. ^{[4, 7]}

The summit it follows

President Xi's state visit to Washington ran from 23 to 25 September, his first since 2015, with the meeting at the White House on the 24th. Al Jazeera's account of the day recorded the two presidents' words about their friendship and a race 'of catching up with one another', and found no breakthrough on Iran, Taiwan or export controls; the lists are the first documents the visit has produced. ^{[9, 8, 1]}

Who it reaches

On the American side the lists reach the retailers of the household goods, toys and ornaments the 77 lines name, and, if China's cuts are made, the sellers of the farm goods, meat, wood, hair care, cosmetics, medical instruments and coal its codes name; none of the companies tagged here is named in either document, and the paths are stated beside each. What settles the cuts is each government's own process: for the United States a tariff action published in the Federal Register, for China a notice of its tariff commission, neither of which carries a date in the terms of reference. ^{[3, 4, 2]}

Sources

Every stock is a company; the desk grades the company behind the stock. This article describes; it does not recommend. Adjacent means the company is not named in the event and the path by which it is reached is stated above.

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