Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 12/5/18

Perdue has upped his calls recently to curb America's reliance on China as a mega-buyer of ag commodities like soybeans. USDA announced seven upcoming trade missions in 2019 that Ted McKinney, undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs, will lead to developing markets like Colombia, Kenya and Vietnam (and to a few close trading partners like Canada, Mexico and the U.K.).

— USDA picked countries that "offer the best prospects for sales of U.S. farm and food products," said McKinney, who led several trade delegations this year, including recent trips to hunt for deals in South Africa and South Korea.

— But replacing Chinese demand is a tall order: China bought $19.6 billion in agricultural products in 2017, per USDA — more than any country except Canada.

Wall Street watch: Stocks sold off Tuesday as doubts swelled about the trade truce Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping reached at the G-20 meeting in Argentina, Pro Trade's Doug Palmer and POLITICO's Katy O'Donnell report. (Grain markets escaped the dropoff, however, with soybean prices trending higher.)

— Confusion amid key differences about what China said it will do, and what the White House said was agreed to, factored into the market drop. Perdue's comments on the deal were an example of the uncertainty that's spooked some investors, as he said Tuesday (much like he did on Monday) that USDA is seeking clarity on what the White House said was China's pledge to start buying U.S. agricultural goods.

Perdue said he wants to find out "exactly what that means" and "when can we go on the offense to start selling again." The secretary has also been looking beyond his foxhole. He's mentioned more than a few times of late that the trade standoff shows the need to wean U.S. agriculture off its reliance on the Chinese market.

"While we're all worried about China and its impact on our business, I say that we probably became too dependent on one customer," Perdue said Monday at an Illinois Farm Bureau event in Chicago.

He noted that McKinney "is trying to develop a market that would benefit us for the long-term future not to be held hostage to one major customer, as we've been this year." (If you're interested, here's the list of 2019 trade missions.)

Other "major customers" like Canada and Mexico are pushing to cut a deal with the Trump administration to lift the steel and aluminum tariffs.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has confirmed that talks with Mexico and Canada about the tariffs were "not going to take a pause" and would continue this week in an effort to "come to a conclusion before long."

As long as those duties are in place, farmers and ranchers will continue feeling the sting of retaliatory tariffs — and the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement will face roadblocks to approval in Congress, Pro Trade's Sabrina Rodriguez writes today.