There is a certain pathetic symmetry in the fact that the two most powerful entities on this dying rock are currently bickering over the volume of soybeans. It is the ultimate testament to the intellectual bankruptcy of the modern age: global stability tethered to the digestive requirements of livestock and the shifting whims of a man who views international diplomacy as a series of hostile real estate closings. We are told, with a straight face, that China has fulfilled its initial commitment to purchase twelve million metric tons of soybeans. This is presented as a triumph of statecraft, rather than what it actually is—a tactical bribe paid in legumes to keep a volatile administration from setting the global supply chain on fire for another forty-eight hours.

To the uninitiated, or those who still believe the nightly news offers something resembling objective reality, this might look like progress. To anyone with a functioning prefrontal cortex, it is a farce. China, a nation that views time in centuries, has mastered the art of playing the long game against a Western leadership that views time in twenty-four-hour cable news cycles. By buying exactly what they promised—not a bean more, not a bean less—Beijing has signaled that they can follow instructions. It is the geopolitical equivalent of giving a toddler a single cookie to stop a public tantrum. They know that the 'deal' announced in October is about as sturdy as a cardboard umbrella in a monsoon, yet they go through the motions because it’s cheaper than dealing with the alternative: a total collapse of the trading order driven by a tweet sent from a gilded bathroom at three in the morning.

Then we have the American side of this transactional disaster. The Trump administration, characterized by a trade policy that resembles a game of 'Whack-a-Mole' played by someone with no depth perception, continues to suggest that these deals are 'historic.' It is a fascinating linguistic choice. To call the purchase of soybeans 'historic' is to admit that your bar for success is so low it has successfully tunneled into the Earth's mantle. The 'shifting trade policy' mentioned in the reports is merely a polite euphemism for the fact that no one in the White House actually has a plan. They have a collection of grievances, a few colorful charts, and a desperate need for a 'win' to distract from the mounting evidence that the trade war has been a self-inflicted wound of staggering proportions.

Now, let us turn our cold, dead eyes toward the American farmer, the perennial prop in this theater of the absurd. These are the people who are supposedly being 'saved' by these deals. Yet, even as the beans move across the Pacific, the reality on the ground is one of mounting debt and high production costs. The farmer is told to be grateful that the market his own government destabilized is now being partially restored by the very adversary he was told to fear. It is a cycle of abuse disguised as a subsidy program. They are being forced to survive on 'trade aid'—a socialist workaround funded by a capitalist administration that despises socialism—all while waiting to see if the President will wake up tomorrow and decide that soy is suddenly a threat to national security.

There is no nobility in this struggle. The Right will claim this is a victory of 'strength' over 'globalist' interests, ignoring the fact that they’ve essentially turned the US agricultural sector into a state-managed utility dependent on the benevolence of the Communist Party. The Left will engage in performative pearl-clutching about the 'destruction of norms,' as if the previous norms were anything other than a more sophisticated way of extracting value from the poor. Both sides are utterly incapable of acknowledging that the entire global economic system is a Rube Goldberg machine built out of greed and held together by the hope that the Chinese will never stop eating pork.

Ultimately, the soybean deal is a microcosm of our collective stagnation. We are fighting over the same dirt and the same seeds, using the same tired rhetoric, while the actual foundations of our civilization rot from the inside. We are led by grifters, fed by victims, and entertained by the spectacle of our own decline. China has met its goal. The US has claimed victory. The farmers are still broke. The cycle continues, and the only thing we have more of than soybeans is our own inexhaustible capacity for self-delusion. It would be tragic if it weren't so profoundly boring.