Bangkok lifts corn tariffs to placate Washington

Thai business papers led with a policy shift: Bangkok will waive tariffs and widen the quota for imported feed corn next year, explicitly making room for US supply. Local coverage in Prachachat Turakij (ประชาชาติธุรกิจ, Prachachat Business) and Krungthep Turakij (กรุงเทพธุรกิจ, Bangkok Business) tied the move to ongoing US-Thai trade talks, where Thailand has pledged zero duties on a broad set of American goods to head off higher US tariffs on Thai exports. The corn decision is the clearest sign the government is willing to trade farm protection for certainty on market access.

Thai equities were mixed. The SET Index traded sideways as investors weighed margin upside for feed-intensive proteins against stress building for domestic growers. Integrated livestock names and feed millers were bid on the open, while agriculture-linked plays with upstream corn exposure lagged. Pork and poultry exporters saw the cleanest readthrough from cheaper feed, while corn traders and farm input distributors faced pressure. The baht was little changed, with traders splitting the difference between a near-term rise in agricultural imports, which is mildly negative for the current account, and the medium-term relief from the US tariff overhang, which is supportive for risk. Bond yields barely moved; this is a relative-price story first, and a fiscal story later.

Thailand historically shields local corn during harvest with a tariff-rate quota and seasonal import restrictions, encouraging mills to substitute cassava and feed wheat or source corn from neighbors under ASEAN preferences. The new plan expands the import quota and scrubs duties for US-origin feed corn, effectively creating a duty-free window for shipments that meet feed-mill specifications. Commerce officials flagged that corn is part of a wider concession package also covering soybeans and some chemicals. Thai-language reports from Thai PBS (ไทยพีบีเอส, Thai Public Broadcasting) and Prachachat framed corn as the quickest lever to show progress on rebalancing trade. It is a politically sensitive lever: opening a channel for US corn directly confronts entrenched protections for growers in the North and Northeast.

The corn move fits into a broader trade bargain. Bangkok has spent months defusing Washington’s tariff threat on Thai exports by offering to eliminate duties on thousands of US goods and to accelerate the timeline for reducing its bilateral surplus. Thai officials have said the aim is to bring trade into balance in under a decade, faster than earlier proposals, by front-loading imports of US agricultural products and ethylene. Local and regional coverage has emphasized the arithmetic: the US goods deficit was about 45.6 billion dollars in 2024, and Thailand’s team is pursuing roughly 20 billion dollars of additional US imports as a near-term glide path. Politically, Bangkok will sell this at home as the price paid to secure a cut in the proposed US tariff from 36 percent to 19 percent and to align Thailand with regional peers now sitting at sub-20 percent rates.

The commercial split is straightforward. Feed mills, broiler and swine integrators, and QSR supply chains gain from lower input costs and better visibility on supply. Expect analysts to revisit margin forecasts for companies with high feed cost shares and capacity to export poultry. The losers are smallholder corn growers and cross-border traders who move maize from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar into Thai mills. US Gulf corn displacing lower-quality regional supply will pressure farmgate prices, particularly in provinces reliant on dryland corn. The government will have to consider compensatory measures, from income insurance to replanting incentives, to avoid rural pushback. The agriculture ministry’s pivot to more enforceable land-use and anti-burning measures could move in tandem, as cheaper imports reduce the political cost of tightening domestic production.

The shift also reshapes sourcing patterns across ASEAN. If Thailand normalizes duty-free US corn, feed buyers in Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia will see sharper US-Brazil competition for Pacific cargoes, with knock-on effects for basis and freight. Kamsarmax and Panamax rates into Southeast Asia could catch a bid if Thai demand for long-haul corn increases. Cross-border maize from the Mekong region will not vanish, but price parity will be more volatile. Brazil’s second-crop corn will still be competitive seasonally; the US advantage is reliability and policy alignment. For Thai mills, diversifying away from feed wheat when corn lands cheaper and closer to protein needs is rational, and it reduces the volatility linked to wheat’s geopolitical spikes.

For listed Thai proteins, a credible duty-free corridor for US corn lowers the variance of gross margins and supports export pricing into Japan, Korea and the Middle East. That favors integrators with processing and overseas channels, not just domestic retail exposure. For upstream agribusiness tied to Thai corn, consolidation risk rises; mills will prefer consistent quality and specs, and working capital cycles improve with fewer bottlenecks. Logistics and port operators serving bulk imports, storage and fumigation stand to benefit from volume growth and more complex handling requirements. Energy and petrochemicals may follow: the same negotiating track references more US ethylene and petrochemical inputs, which could reshape feedstock choices for Thai producers if pricing and tariffs align.

This decision carries domestic political risk. Farmer groups and segments of the Thai Chamber of Commerce have already urged the prime minister to ensure concessions do not leave local producers exposed. Expect the cabinet to sequence relief: first, implement corn tariff waivers with a monitoring committee; second, announce budgeted support for growers in the next fiscal plan; third, link future import volumes to farm income metrics to argue the policy is adaptive, not a blank check for imports. Communication matters. Using Thai-language media that rural audiences consume to explain compensation and alternative crop programs will be critical. The government will also lean on the narrative that preventing steeper US tariffs protects manufacturing jobs and export SMEs, balancing the costs borne by agriculture.

Two points are getting lost in English-language coverage. First, this is not a one-off corn tweak; it is the template for how Thailand will trade sectoral protection for certainty under a world of politicized tariffs. Corn is the test case, but soybeans, chemicals and select machinery will follow if the US keeps 19 percent in place and signals path-dependent relief. That means lower input volatility for Thailand’s export engines and a tilt toward scale players with compliance muscle. Second, the fiscal bill will surface later. If rural compensation rises and border-trade rents decline, expect more off-balance-sheet support via state banks and insurance schemes. Investors who buy protein exporters and port logistics while hedging Thai rural credit exposure are closer to the real trade. Keep an eye on cabinet minutes in Thai sources such as Krungthep Turakij (กรุงเทพธุรกิจ) and Prachachat Turakij (ประชาชาติธุรกิจ) for the quota schedule and any seasonal restrictions; that is where the investable details will show up first.

Tags: exports, US, quota, imports, duties, feed corn, tariffs