U.S. grains: Corn, wheat ease after gains driven by Black Sea jitters 

Chicago | Reuters – U.S. corn futures fell on Wednesday and wheat futures also dipped as fears eased about a military escalation in the Black Sea grain export region, analysts said.

Soybeans declined on uncertainty about Chinese demand for U.S. supplies of the oilseed.

Chicago Board of Trade March corn futures CH26 were down 6-1/2 cents at $4.43-1/2 per bushel and March wheat WH26 was down 2-3/4 cents at $5.38-1/4 a bushel. CBOT January soybeans SF26 were down 9 cents at $11.15-3/4 a bushel.

Corn and wheat erased most of the previous day’s advances, which brokers had attributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to cut off Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea after drone attacks on Russia-linked vessels. By Wednesday, following a five-hour Kremlin meeting between Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump’s top envoys, fears of a threat to grain exports appeared to have receded.

“They are not telling us any details, but it seems like maybe Mr. Putin is not going to try to stop Ukraine from shipping grain. He was rattling his saber yesterday,” said Tom Fritz, a partner with EFG Group in Chicago.

Ample global supplies, bolstered by bumper crops being harvested in Argentina and Australia, added to bearish sentiment in wheat.

Algeria’s state grains agency bought about 810,000 to 870,000 metric tons of milling wheat in an international tender, European traders said. Algeria’s purchases are optional origin, but traders suspect some of the wheat could be sourced from the Black Sea region or Argentina.

Soybean futures declined as traders continued to monitor U.S. soy sales to China. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the New York Times DealBook summit that China was poised to complete its commitments under a U.S.-China trade agreement, including the purchase of 12 million metric tons of soybeans, which the Treasury chief said would be finished by the end of February 2026.

“Mr. Bessent just put the whammy on the bean market,” Fritz said. “He let it drop that they (China) don’t have to fulfill it until the end of February. We were always under the impression that it was going to be by the end of December,” Fritz said, adding that by February, Brazil will be starting to harvest what is projected to be a record-large soybean crop that could dominate global exports.

U.S. shipments to China are gaining momentum, with at least six bulk cargo vessels scheduled to load with soybeans at Gulf Coast terminals through mid-December, according to a shipping schedule seen by Reuters on Tuesday.

-Additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris and Ella Cao and Lewis Jackson in Beijing