U.S-China trade jitters weighs on agricultural grains, new tariffs set to be imposed on China this Friday.

Concerns over the U.S.-China trade relations continue to weigh heavily on grain prices, as new tariffs are set to be imposed this Friday.

Regarding weather news, daytime highs, have been well above average in many parts of the central U.S. for the past several days, will begin to normalize to seasonal averages and turn in some below average temperatures heading into this weekend. Meanwhile, for the rainfall, not much is forecast for the next seven days across the Corn Belt, although parts of Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota, central Illinois and northern Indiana could see up to 1 inch of additional rain accumulation between now and July 12th.

Regarding oil news, oil prices have declined after the U.S Energy Information Administration reported an inventory build of 1.2 million barrels for the week to June 29th, opposed to the forecasted negative 5.2 million barrels. This follows three consecutive weekly draws of a total of 19.9 million barrels.

The U.S. West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil August futures were trading higher by 1.2 percent to close the session at 70.86 USD per barrel, and is currently trading at 70.09 USD per barrel at 3:00 GMT.

However, Brent Oil September futures a trader lower at 77.56 USD per barrel, gaining 0.34 percent at the close of the session, and is currently trading at 76.64 USD per barrel at 3:00 GMT.

Wheat:

CBOT September Wheat Futures bounced significantly higher to trade at 5.05 USD per bushel after grain markets absorbed lower than anticipated production across some major production regions overseas, most notably in the EU.

Ahead of Friday morning’s USDA weekly export data release, analysts expect the agency will report between 11. million and 18.4 million bushels of wheat sales for the week ending June 28.

Furthermore, Informa Economics estimates that the 2018 U.S. wheat production could total 1.869 billion bushels total, which includes estimates of 1.192 billion bushels of winter wheat, 604 million bushels of spring wheat.

Estimates were lowered for Russia’s 2018-19 wheat production to 2.462 billion bushels, down around 220 million bushels from prior estimates.

Meanwhile, Iraq purchased 3.7 million bushels of wheat, sourced from Australia, in an international tender.

Corn:

CBOT September Corn Futures pushed for gains earlier in Thursday’s session and closed higher as traders made minor adjustments to their positions to trade at 3.52-1/2 USD per bushel.

Moreover, Ahead of Friday morning’s USDA weekly export data release, analysts expect the agency will report between 31.5 million and 51.2 million bushels of corn sales for the week ending June 28th.

Private exporters reported to USDA optional origin sales of 5.4 million bushels of corn for delivery to South Korea to the 2018/19 marketing year, which begins on September 1st.

Soybean:

CBOT Soybean September Futures dropped to trade at 8.46-1/4 USD per bushel as U.S.-China trade relations remain unresolved, and the next wave of tariffs are set to be enacted on Friday.

Ahead of Friday’s morning’s USDA weekly export data release, analysts expect the agency will report between 14.7 million and 33.1 million bushels of soybean sales for the week ending June 28th.

Preliminary volume estimates were for 135,226 contracts, still relatively quiet after markets paused for the U.S Independence Day holiday but still slightly above Tuesday’s final count of 119,797.