Market to Market - November 21, 2025

Brooke Kohlsdorf: Coming up on Market to Market - The EPA and the Army Corps join forces on Waters of the US Investigating prices charged for fertilizer and prices paid by packing plants. A long running Midwest refugee center worries about the future. And commodity market analysis with Jeff French. Next.

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Announcer: “This is the Friday, November 21, 2025 edition of Market to Market - the Weekly Journal of Rural America.”

Hello. I’m Brooke Kohlsdorf, Paul Yeager is on assignment.   

After more than a month, U.S. government reports, delayed due to the government shutdown, are starting to trickle in. However, the economic snapshot is two months old. The October reports will never be released because no data was collected while federal employees were on furlough.

The unemployment rate ticked up slightly in  September to 4.4%.

During that same month, 119,000 jobs were created, more than double industry expectations.

Data gathered seven weeks ago revealed the trade deficit fell 24% in August, as President Donald Trump's sweeping global tariffs pushed imports lower. Between January and August of this year, and the same time period last year, the trade deficit is up 25%. 

Creighton University’s Rural Mainstreet Index, a report not held up by the lack of government data, sank below growth neutral for the ninth time this year. More than half of the bank CEOs surveyed in the 10-state region believe we are either in a recession or we will be in one next year.

Sales of existing homes, an indicator of the overall health of the economy, rose 1.2 percent in October but the market has been in a slump since 2022.

The Obama and Biden administrations made a bid to broaden the definition of what exactly are the Waters of the United States. 

After several attempts, they ran up against the Supreme Court. That landmark decision narrowed the definition of WOTUS and reduced federal jurisdiction.

This week, the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers joined forces to make another run at a definition.

Colleen Bradford Krantz reports.

Krantz: Pointing to “five decades of confusing and everchanging definitions,” the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers announced on Monday another attempt at clarifying the phrase “waters of the United States.”

Lee Zeldin, EPA Administrator: “And I know that across the country, news of today’s proposal is going to be met with lots of relief and happiness from farmers, ranchers, other land owners, governments that have been looking for a simple prescriptive definition.”

Adam R. Telle, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works: “Since 1972, Americans have struggled to understand what Congress meant when it included ‘Waters of the United States’ in the Clean Water Act. ... The definition of that term has been abused, sometimes stretched beyond recognition, over time, and it’s left Americans uncertain about whether they were complying with the Clean Water Act or not.

Federal officials say their proposal, which addresses the concept of “continuous surface connection,” is consistent with a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The proposal addresses the scope of “adjacent wetlands” near regulated “traditional navigable” federal waters. The proposed rule says the water would need to have a continuous surface connection, with both surface water - at least during the wet season - and abutting a regulated body of water.

EPA officials say they recognize that, in some instances, drought or tide flow may need to be considered.

Before the new guidance is implemented, federal officials will seek written feedback and hold listening sessions.

Gov. Patrick Morrisey, Governor, West Virginia: “I’m hopeful that whatever happens with the body politic over the next ten years, that this could be a durable rule because it’s common sense.” 

For Market to Market, I’m Colleen Bradford Krantz.

Kohlsdorf: In recent months, the Trump Administration has put a focus on the price paid by grain farmers for inputs and the amount packers are paying cattle producers for their animals. Abigail Slater, the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, has been on the case in both instances.

Over the past nine months, A-A-G Slater has taken time out from her legal work to speak with law students at several universities across the country.

Peter Tubbs was at her most recent lecture.

Tubbs: This week, the Assistant Attorney General for the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division defended the DOJ’s plans to enforce antitrust laws that affect agribusiness.

Speaking at the Drake Law School in Des Moines, Iowa, Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater asserted that evolving markets require steady monitoring as conditions change.

Gail Slater, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division: “If our big tech cases against Google have taught us anything, it's that even relatively fast moving internet markets can remain monopolized for decades. Our litigation experience suggests that we cannot assume that markets will always self-correct. That market concentration is never a problem. That entry is always easy. That exclusionary conduct, usually sales, and that buyer power, is never an issue worth investigating.”

Slater also spoke to the importance of enforcing the Packers and Stockyards Act, which functions as a safeguard against exploitation of farmers and ranchers by the meat packing industry.

Gail Slater, Assistant Attorney General, Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division: “This is the ranchers American dream, but this can only happen if the current generation can keep their ranch operating and free, fair and competitive markets. For this to become reality, our great farmers, ranchers and small businesses like independent seed dealers need an antitrust cop on the beat.”

For Market to Market, I’m Peter Tubbs

Kohlsdorf: Those escaping poverty, political persecution or threats of bodily harm have been coming to the U.S. for nearly 250 years.

Those who enter the country illegally face detention or deportation. The Trump Administration has reported nearly two million illegal immigrants have either been deported or self-deported since January. Some sources dispute this number but say it is in the hundreds of thousands.

The door for so-called at-risk refugees is not open as wide as it has been in the past. In October, the White House set the lowest ceiling since the resettlement program for at-risk immigrants was established in 1980. By comparison, 125,000 were allowed into the country only two years ago. In 2026, that number will be cut to 7,500. 

The cut mirrors a Trump administration move to reduce funding for agencies that help newcomers navigate day-to-day needs. 

On the ground in Illinois, one refugee center is concerned about what that means for the people they serve.

Colleen Bradford Krantz has more in our Cover Story. 

Krantz: Louis Nguyen, an immigrant from Vietnam, and his son have stopped by The Refugee Center in Champaign, Illinois for an appointment on a recent morning. Now a citizen, he has a job and only occasionally needs help from the center, usually with more complex tasks such as medical coverage paperwork.

Louis Nguyen, Champaign, Illinois: “I love it here and how somebody do good. And help somebody have a good life and understand anything: the paperwork. I love it here.”

He was told soon after arrival in 2004 that The Refugee Center was where he could find help when needed. What he didn’t know then was that it was another immigrant from his own homeland who helped start the center 45 years ago.

Now 99, Tam Wei lives across the metro area in an Urbana assisted living center. And she, like those who now run the refugee center, hopes to see the center survive a financial threat facing many centers that also serve refugees, a legal category of immigrants who are viewed as being in danger in their home nations.

Tam Wei, born in 1926 in a small village not far from the city of Hanoi in Vietnam, had only been married six months when her young husband, a doctor, was gunned down in 1946 during a post-World War II conflict. He and Tam had stopped on the street to treat a wounded Vietnamese soldier when one of the occupying French soldiers fired the unprovoked shot.

Tam Wei, Champaign, Illinois: “I tried to open his jacket and I think it was too much and I passed out… I think he passed away right in front of me.”

Tam felt the following year was a blur as she, as a widowed 20-year-old, struggled to figure out how to move forward. Ultimately, after watching children at a Catholic school and feeling a spark of interest in education, a nun gave her a chance to lead a classroom. She enjoyed it so much that she took an exam that would allow her to teach in public schools. She earned a top score and was hired by a school in Hanoi.

By 1951, she had studied for and earned two bachelor’s degrees, but wanted to continue studying, this time abroad. With her influential, non-Communist family facing threats from the Communists, she was also eager to move to a more peaceful place. She would end up accepting an offer to continue studying in Geneva, Switzerland, where she studied under the famous educational psychologist Jean Piaget, who helped change how educators understood student learning.

By the mid-1950s, Tam was accepted at the University of Illinois, where she would earn her Master’s in Educational Psychology and later her doctorate. It was there that she was introduced to Lun-Shin Wei, a young man from Taiwan who was helping soybean breeders develop a soybean that would appeal to western tastes. The two were married in 1955 and would raise four children.

By 1970, Tam Wei was hired as a school psychologist and traveled a large area of rural Illinois. She worried about working remote areas while the nation was involved in the Vietnam War. But said she almost always found kindness and gratitude.

Tam Wei, Champaign, Illinois: “It was very challenging. Because Vietnam War still going on and I’m a woman. And they may never see a Vietnamese woman. But that’s okay… I’m one to take on a challenge….You know, when you are very sincere and really want to do something for the kid, it goes through.”

Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian refugees, a class of legal immigrants who have fled their country due to fear of persecution or violence and fled via another interim country, began arriving in the Champaign-Urbana metro area during and after the Vietnam War. Although she had lived in the U.S. for 20 years by then, Tam Wei still remembered the frightening feeling of arriving in a new unfamiliar country and decided she needed to help.

Tam Wei, Champaign, Illinois: “So what I should do? I should do something. That was the only thing. Even though I have no idea about administration.”

And she wasn’t alone in wanting to help. She convinced a friend Quyt Nguyen, who had worked as a high school administrator in Vietnam, to join her.

They went around town, talking to churches about the refugees. Many of those churches and their members began offering to sponsor refugees. By 1980, those efforts had led to the opening of the refugee center, initially in a small room in an Urbana church.

John Muirhead, The Refugee Center, Board Member, Champaign, Illinois: “I first got involved about 1978, ’79. I had just come to town to work as a director of an adult education program and one of the courses we offered was English as a second language. And through that, I met Tam Wei and also her co-director Quyt Nguyen when they were helping new arrivals. …Tam Wei is very persuasive so she said, ‘Oh, John, it would be good if you were on our board. And that’s how it started.”

Muirhead has been involved ever since and is proud of all they accomplished, first with Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian refugees, and later with refugees and other immigrants from all over the world.

John Muirhead, The Refugee Center, Board Member, Champaign, Illinois: “It’s really amazing when you think back over the almost 45 years that I’ve had the privilege of witnessing this.”

Things changed financially for the center in early January when President Trump announced a pulling back of some funding related to refugees. It affected a refugee support system the Champaign center had joined in 2016. Within a few months, the federal government had cancelled its contracts with the entities that oversee most refugee centers around the country. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is the supervising and funding partner for The Refugee Center in Champaign, was among those. All federal support for refugees is essentially shut down.

Lisa Wilson, The Refugee Center, Director, Champaign, Illinois: “State funding is fine right now. It’s the federal funding we lost from the reception and placement program…”

The center will have to trim about 15% of its budget, but because of strong state support and private donations, the work they do with other categories of immigrants will continue. Others focused only on refugees may not be so lucky.

Lisa Wilson, The Refugee Center, Director, Champaign, Illinois: “I have great concerns about the system. I’m so sad about the fact that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is no longer a resettlement agency. It’s my sincere hope that that will change in the future. Refugee resettlement is the gold standard of legal immigration. People are vetted, they are interviewed, they have support through either family that’s already here or agencies like ours…. So I’m very sad to see the Trump administration has decided to target refugee resettlement.”

Tam Wei, who lost her husband, is enjoying her family and friends in retirement. She doesn’t want to dwell on politics. But she does remember a lesson she learned long ago in Vietnam that still serves her today.

Immediately after her first husband was shot in 1946, the French soldiers, thinking her Red Cross coat meant she was a nurse, took Tam Wei to an infirmary at a jail, intending for her to help. For 12 days, she was confined with a group of women who were former prostitutes. Coming from a prominent family in Vietnam, her reaction might have been to judge those women who came from tougher lives. But, upon hearing their stories, she began to understand how poverty - the need to survive - had driven their decisions.

She sometimes found herself reminding her fellow Midwesterners of the same lesson she learned in that jail: listen to others and be compassionate.

Tam Wei, Champaign, Illinois: “What do they have? They have only their dignity. If your church is able to give so much, why don’t you give them that amount and let them spend it instead of making them come and ask for that? You need to think of the dignity of the people.”

For Market to Market, I’m Colleen Bradford Krantz.

Announcer: Next, the Market to Market report.

Kohlsdorf: One programing note we are recording this week's show on Thursday. Due to a busy production schedule in the markets, prices were mixed for the week after adjusting for last week's report and responding to the most recent Chinese purchases for the week, the nearby wheat contract continued to be flat, and the March corn contract fell $0.06. There was another flash sale of soybeans to China on Thursday morning. The January soybean contract dropped $0.02, while January meal cut $7 per ton. March cotton contracted by $0.39 per hundredweight. Over in the dairy parlor. December class three milk futures weakened $0.40. The livestock market was mixed. February cattle dropped by $4.13. January feeders cut $4.17, and the February lean hog. Contract put on $0.27. In the currency markets, the U.S. Dollar Index was higher by 90 ticks. January. Crude oil lost $1.13 per barrel. Comex gold dropped $33.40 per ounce, and the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index was down more than two points to settle at five 5655. Here now, to lend us his insight on these and other trends is our regular market analyst, Jeff French. Hi, Jeff.

Jeff French: Hi, Brooke. Great to be here.

Kohlsdorf: Nice to have you. So we've had a week now. The markets have had a week to digest what was in last Friday's Wasde report, which was long anticipated. China is back to buying again. Are those two things weighing on the market? Are those the two things responsible for what we've seen or haven't seen this week?

French: Yeah. First part about the report. Yeah, it weighed on the market. But the report, in my opinion, it almost opened up more questions than answers. You know, we got that report after the government was shut down for 40 days. I mean, they came back to work for two days and were supposed to, you know, organize all this information and get it in. So it felt a little rushed to me. And, you know, in my opinion, from just talking with my clients and traveling the Midwest, you know, that corn yield seems awfully high. I mean, most of the guys that I talk with are are worse than last year. Very few are better than last year. On their corn yields. Now, we do have to deal with the 98 million acres of planted corn. I mean, that's a lot of corn acres in the ground. But yeah, I think the report it weighed on the market, but also seasonally going into late November into Thanksgiving. You know, the saying goes that bears get Thanksgiving. You know, regarding the Chinese sales, you know. Yes. Good to see we had this big run up for the last month, since middle of October, put $1.30 a contract on the beans. But then we started to get the Chinese announcements and they were kind of trickled out. You know, it's classic by the rumor. Sell the fact. Now, we've backed off here about $0.40 off the highs. You know today's close here on Thursday right at around 1122 in January 1120 is that 20 day moving average. We have not closed below the 20 day moving average since the rally began in October. Mid October. So technically we're kind of setting up in a range that we should find some support. You know, I'd think it'd be interesting if the Chinese, if they want to fulfill their 12 million metric tons here in the next couple of days, they should be buying this dip.

Kohlsdorf: Yeah. What about so when we talk about wheat and you were talking about the WASDE report, is that the thing that kind of took the excitement out of the wheat market this week?

French:  Well, actually, you know, it was rumored that China was buying wheat. And today we actually got confirmation that they bought a couple cargoes of white U.S. wheat. But also, you know, news out of Argentina, I mean, Argentina right now has very cheap wheat on the world market. It's actually cheaper than U.S. corn currently. Right now. China, also the Soviet Union, Russia out this week with up in their total wheat acres. They're up or excuse me their production up 88 million metric tons. So the Black Sea region will continue to, you know, control the world wheat prices. And also, you know, U.S. wheat prices got up in that 3 to 4 month high and kind of just ran out of ammo to continue higher.

Kohlsdorf: Okay. So going back to corn, you were talking about the WASDE and how it had an impact on all of the grains. Is it going to be stuck for a while until we get the next report, which is mid December? Right.

French:  Yeah. So it will be the next report will be December 9th. Tuesday. Historically December report. They don't change anything from the November report because then they're ramping up for the final production report in January. But I think this year the December report will have some changes. I mean, I think now you're going to have more surveys. The USDA is going to be back to work. So I think that will be that report will be highly anticipated. If you look historically from November to the final report, you know, what are some of the biggest cuts in corn? You know, you go from 186 down to 182. That would be historically very large, a four bushel break. But, you know, this is not a normal year with a shutdown. So I would anticipate that the yields coming lower. But we'll just have to see what happens okay.

Kohlsdorf: You don't know how low though.

French:  Well I mean last year was 179. And you know, from who I talked to I mean most producers did not have as good a corn as last year. Again, though, we do have more acres that were planted.

Kohlsdorf: Okay. So yes, the big news this week, China buying some of our beans. Is it enough or how much more are they going to have to buy for it to start moving the market in the next few weeks?

French:  Well, the nature of the futures market, they build that information in very quickly. And we you know, we rallied this market in about five weeks, a $1.30 off the lows. So they put in that bullish information. But if you if you break down the numbers confirm purchases they have purchased 1.6 million metric tons each million metric ton is 37 million bushels. So they got on the books right now confirmed 60 million bushels of beans, purchased the agreement, 12 million metric tons is right around 440 million bushels. So if they are going to fulfill their agreement, the trade deal with the United States, they got a lot more buy in to do. And, you know, they throw away around that December that has to be completed. Well, that's historically I mean typically we sell all our beans through December and then they transfer down to Brazilian crop coming on board. But you know with the trade deal, I mean they could keep buying right after December with the U.S. beans as well.

Kohlsdorf: Want to go to social media for our next question, which has to do with beans. So this is from Phil in Ontario. And he says the USDA report took the steam out of the price rally since October 1st. Or is this just a Thanksgiving retrenchment? Can the price rally pick up steam again on South America weather or an inadvertent black swan event?

French:  Well, the question to those is both. Yes. I mean, South American weather will drive the bean prices. Not quite yet, but you get into that January February time period where the beans are filling pods down there. Absolutely. That can drive the market. I mean, Brazil alone is expected to plant 120 million acres of beans. So they are they are ramping up to plant a lot of beans. The black swan event, obviously, that's something that we always have to take into effect. But, you know, it looks like at least from the charts right now, that the bears will have Thanksgiving. Let's see if the Bulls can get Christmas.

Kohlsdorf: Okay. Last week on this show, it was suggested that the cattle rally was over. Have we seen the highs?

French:  Well, I mean, I'm not going out on a limb there. I mean, we made new lows for the move here today. You know, a lot of these markets is about momentum. And right now unfortunately the momentum in cattle is to the downside. And you know, in my opinion, you look at the charts and you look at where we're at. I mean you got all the fat cattle trading right around that $200 mark. You know, I think we'll probably test that here in the next couple of weeks. We can see if we have, you know, psychological support. Feeders look like they want to test that $300 mark. I mean, it, you know, it just feels like the momentum is down right now. And you know we are oversold. But you got to remember I mean we went up for ten months straight in a row. I mean we just went up almost every other day. So right now yeah the prices are looking like we are going to continue to slide.

Kohlsdorf: I know this is an old story a couple of weeks, but the Trump administration saying they wanted to bring beef prices down. Is that still impacting the feeder market.

Kohlsdorf: Oh I think, you know, it's just the, you know, the psyche of the market. I mean, when you have when you have the administration saying they want to bring the product down, the price is down. You know, the investments, the investors and the funds, they're going to say, okay, I'll go play somewhere else. I mean, if I'm managing money and I'm long and I have a good position on, I'm going to sell that position and collect my money. So that's what we've seen here. Now with the CFTC just opened, but they were closed for seven weeks. You know, they had a huge long position. But I anticipate by the time when we catch up to the reports, the funds have switched from being long and actually are now short and pressing. The prices lower.

Kohlsdorf: Okay. What about seasonal demand coming up with the holidays? Will that be doing anything? Enough to the market?

French:  You know, it helps. I mean, there's no question beef demand has been great. You know, nothing. That's the thing. Nothing really changed fundamentally. But everything changed. I mean, I know that doesn't make sense, but, you know, demand in the numbers have have been tight. Now we got some carcass data that, you know, the carcasses are heavy. We're we're averaging 983 pounds per carcass per steer, which is 26 pounds heavier than last year. I mean, we are producing some very, very heavy cattle. But, you know, the market can handle it. I mean, the beef demand has been robust.

Kohlsdorf: We have just a little bit of time left about 20s. What about hogs? Is there any fresh news there?

French:  Well, the hogs, you know, from September 30th, I mean, we've been pretty much straight down. You know, the funds were long, 146,000 contracts seasonally. The hogs in November tend to work lower, but yeah, it just they're getting caught up with the sell off in the cattle as well. You know typically the protein complex they roll together. Unfortunately, they've been rolling downhill here.

Kohlsdorf:  Now the sympathy. 

French:  Yeah. 

Kohlsdorf: Is that what they call it? All right Jeff we've covered a lot. Thank you so much for being here. And we will have more to discuss in Market Plus no doubt. Thank you. All right. Well, you have been watching the analysis segment. And in a moment we will continue our discussion in an online only segment. You can search Market Plus with Jeff French:  wherever you get your podcasts. To hear that conversation or go to our website of Markettomarket.org. We want to make sure you never miss any of our content. So when you subscribe to our YouTube channel at Market to Market, there are benefits of being there. When you turn on notifications, you'll be at the front of the line for our stories Market Plus and M to M podcast. Next week. Commodity and Economic Analysis with Chris Robinson and Ernie Goss. Thanks so much for watching. Have a great week.

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