The leaves are dropping quickly in the soybean fields of southwestern Ontario. There are just a few combines in the fields, but you know how it is. Sunny, warm days always bring an acceleration in soybean maturity. I hope to get my combine rolling through those beans next week. Minus my ongoing war with wild carrot, it looks to be a pretty good year for soybeans.

Prices have been good too, and we've discussed much of that over the last few weeks as soybean futures remain over $13 a bushel. However, there is one particular thing I've been waiting for which I thought might come to fruition by the time I wrote this column. I was looking for the elimination of Chinese tariffs on American soybeans. I thought with President Xi visiting the American president in Washington, we might see some type of movement on that. However, as of Thursday night, those Chinese tariffs remain in place. Needless to say, I'm sure the American negotiators were trying to get rid of them.

A level playing field it is not, and you feel that especially as a Canadian farmer. The American farmer, on the other hand, not only enjoys good prices and good crops but also has benefited from the American subsidy theme park. Of course, then there's the Chinese farmer who was lost in the mix with regard to the current summit in Washington between Xi and Trump. It's a long story; let's just say that the view from the other side of the world is always so different from what we have here. Understanding that at times can be quite challenging.

As it is, we never think much about the Chinese farmer but think much more about the great consuming public, which is China. You can make a very good argument that, without China consuming vast amounts of soybeans over the last 10 to 15 years, we'd have surplus upon surplus. Of course, understanding exactly what their leaders do from time to time is hard to understand from a Western perspective. Needless to say, Chinese leaders who do not face elections know that they have to keep their people well fed. That's one reason why China has such a voracious appetite for agricultural commodities from Brazil as well as the United States.

To decipher the dialogue between President Trump and President Xi is incredibly difficult to imagine. On one hand, you have an American President who was elected by popular vote, while President Xi is a long-time official of the Communist Party who worked his way to the top. History and culture dictate a lot of what gets discussed at this level. It is easy for Western voices like ours to think that China should be a democracy. For instance, in a perfect world, I would think that. However, some of my Chinese friends told me that would be almost impossible based on the China of today. They say it's just too big, too vast and too complex to govern it any other way.

On this side of the world, it is easy to see how our American friends can dominate any particular geopolitical conversation. The American economy is the richest and largest in the world, and of course, as Canadians, we really feel that. At the same time, as all of you know, I spend a lot of time in Asia where the influence from China and India is almost everywhere. It is in those neighborhoods that I often think the view from the other side of the world looks different, and that's a big reason why sometimes we have conflict and disagreement. Distance in certain circumstances breeds uncertainty and misunderstanding.

This uncertainty can certainly translate to our agricultural markets. That's a big reason why December corn is at $5.24 and November soybeans at $13.12 a bushel, prices much higher than the last two years. Having said that, December corn is $0.25 less than it used to be, and it's just above support levels. I'm not saying we're teetering; maybe it's just that harvest is wide open right now, and there seemingly is grain everywhere.

Having said that, we know that we have to feed the bull every day to keep things going. Breaking through support levels is not part of the narrative. However, maybe some good news from the Chinese leader in Washington is. As a Canadian soybean producer, I probably benefit from those Chinese tariffs on American soybeans. However, from the 30,000 feet level, I'd also benefit from a bump in futures levels from an abrupt change in Chinese tariff policy.

We shall see; wishing for positive geopolitical impacts on agricultural markets can take a long time. This past week, we had the American President giving the opinion he would much prefer Belarusian potash versus that from Saskatchewan, Canada. So, we know it's a mixed bag. Ditto with the U.S. and China. At least they keep talking; someday that might result in good news for our agricultural markets.

Philip Shaw can be reached at philip@philipshaw.ca

Follow him on social platform X @Agridome

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