Market Observation: American Cotton Export Sales Fell By 46% In One Week

The export sales of the United States performed well, with 121500 packages signed in 2024/25, Vietnam, Pakistan and Turkey being the main buyers, China cancelling about 49300 packages, and 57900 packages signed in 2025/26.

The shipment volume of American upland cotton is 377700 bales. Vietnam is an important market for American cotton, but it is also a huge exporter (originated from Vietnam and China at first). When you think that Vietnam has a trade surplus with the United States of 17 billion dollars (perhaps the third largest trade surplus with the United States), then Vietnam must achieve reciprocal tariff goals. It is difficult to know the impact on cotton, otherwise it is unlikely to be positive.

Outlook for the next five days: cotton futures closed strongly lower on Friday, and fell for five days in a row that week, offsetting all the gains of the previous week. Traders are still quite depressed about the short-term and long-term basic outlook. In the short term, one aspect that may push up prices is how to operate speculative short positions. Some profit taking may occur before the release of American Cotton's intended area on March 31. Although analysts predict that the area of American cotton will decline significantly, the insufficient demand in recent months still means that American cotton is in sufficient supply. Traders may cover some short positions before the upcoming report to eliminate risks, which may limit the downward space in the next week.

Outlook for the next 30 days: the cotton planting area in the United States may fall below 10 million acres for the first time since 2015. Even so, the fundamentals of the coming year are still likely to remain loose, especially when the export demand of American cotton has not improved. Since 2021/22, the domestic consumption of the United States has been decreasing every year, accounting for only a small part of the total demand. This makes cotton prices highly dependent on trade and trade policies, which is an important reason for the continuous decline of cotton in the past six months. The market predicted in advance that another trade war would lead to lower demand and abundant cotton supply.

90 day outlook: As of the week of March 13, the export sales of American cotton disappointed, reaching 127600 bales, the lowest level since the week of October 3. This is 46% lower than the previous week and 49% lower than the four week average. Considering that ICE futures basically rebounded 5 cents from the previous week's low on Thursday, the slowdown in sales is not very surprising, but the price rise has hindered sales. Despite this, US cotton shipments continue to perform strongly, but unless sales improve, loose US fundamentals may continue to depress prices.