CHICAGO, Oct 30 (Reuters): U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Thursday that China has agreed to buy 12 million metric tons of American soybeans during the current season through January, down from 22.5 million tons in the prior season after a months-long tariff battle halted all purchases of the current U.S. harvest.

China also committed to buying 25 million tons annually for the next three years as part of a larger trade agreement with Beijing, Bessent said, following a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea.

The drop in Chinese demand cost U.S. farmers - a key pillar of Trump's political base - billions of dollars in lost sales and the deal would represent a return to normalcy in trade with the top U.S. soy importer, which averaged purchases of 28.8 million tons over the past five September-to-August crop seasons.

"Our great soybean farmers, who the Chinese used as political pawns - that's off the table, and they should prosper in the years to come," Bessent told Fox Business Network's "Mornings with Maria" program.

The agreement negotiated in Malaysia over the weekend could be signed as soon as next week, he said.

Bessent said other countries in Southeast Asia have agreed to buy another 19 million tons of U.S. soybeans, but did not specify a timeframe for those purchases or the nations involved. Asian importers other than China have imported between 8 million and 10 million tons annually in recent years, according to U.S. Census Bureau trade data.

The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago Board of Trade reversed losses and closed 1.2% higher at a 15-month high of $11.07-3/4 per bushel.

U.S. soybean export prices jumped by $20 to $30 per metric ton this week as exporters anticipated the Trump-Xi meeting would spark fresh demand. Three , or about 180,000 tons, were sold to Chinese state-owned importer COFCO on the eve of the summit.

"These (Chinese purchase agreements) are not numbers that are unattainable, but they're also not numbers that are really supporting the idea of expansion for our U.S. soybean export program," said Ted Seifried, chief market strategist for Zaner Ag Hedge.

Photo from Reuters