Cotton Market Idles as Chinese Delegation Visits the White House

We are coming to you in what has turned out to be a sneaky, busy news week.

for the cotton industry here the week of September 21, here the first week of fall.

Congress, with something like, I don't know, 22 working days left in the congressional calendar year, they are suddenly very keen on working on a farm bill.

We had a bill that is going to, well, it will be a bill that is obviously going to impact in a big way our producer audience.

We saw that just last Friday, the Senate Ag Committee advanced the Agricultural Act of 2026 out of their committee.

Of course, the bill must still withstand a vote on both the floors of Congress, but there is hope that it could get done before the current Farm Bill expires, which is rapidly approaching.

So meanwhile, across town, off the hill, but across town, Over at the White House, President Xi of China is a house guest there with the Trumps there at the White House this week.

So there have been a lot of headlines.

Obviously, this is big news that the Chinese delegation is in Washington, D.C. to meet with the Trump administration.

And a lot of those headlines this week have revolved around anything other than agriculture.

The big talking point is the two countries' potential future.

regulation of AI and how they're going to deal with AI.

But could cotton and other ag trade deals be on the agenda as she and Trump sit down at the bargaining table? We spent last episode discussing BACA, discussing the Buying American Cotton Act, which was one of three keys of cotton price recovery, which were set forth by Allenburg Cotton CEO Joe Nicosia this past winter during his speech at the Mid-South Farm and Gin Show.

He laid out three big things that were going to impact cotton prices if we were to see some price recovery.

The first was the Buying American Cotton Act, if we could get that passed.

We talked about that in last week's episode.

The other two keys of recovery, number one was weather.

Everybody out there is well aware of what we've seen, weather here, particularly in the Southeast and down in Brazil this year.

And the other thing, the third thing, was trade deals.

If we could strike some trade deals with some of these key partners, that would have a major positive impact on cotton prices.

The biggest of these key partners specifically was China.

So naturally this week as Chinese President Xi and company visited Washington, D.C., this represents a potentially big moment for us, a big moment for the cotton industry in 2026.

So that is one item that we are going to be getting into today with today's guest interview, Mr. Herman Kohlmeier.

Now, many of you may already be familiar with Mr. Kohlmeier.

He is the author of the Cotton Comment.