Cooking oil stocks are frying high

Who knew that the grease used for Chinese egg rolls was flowing into the US to power planes and make soap?

This unappetizing tidbit bubbled up after President Donald Trump proposed a ban on imports of Chinese cooking oil—including used cooking oil, or UCO, which goes into a mind-boggling array of products from biodiesel to animal feed to cosmetics. As Trump pointed out on Truth Social, “We don’t need to purchase it from China” because America could “easily produce cooking oil ourselves.”

He has a point: The average fast-food joint generates 35 pounds of UCO per day, providing an ocean of upcycling opportunities within our own borders. Domestic cooking oil companies could also crank up production if the US reduces its dependence on China, which explains why shares of Bunge Global and Archer-Daniels-Midland heated up faster than a McDonald’s deep fryer today: Bunge Global popped 12.96%, and Archer-Daniels-Midland rose 2.47%.

Why Trump’s hung up on cooking oil

This latest salvo in the escalating trade war arrived in retaliation against China’s snub of US soybeans—a move Trump blasted online as an “Economically Hostile Act.” Still, his response might not land that hard, since US demand for cooking oil can’t hold a candle to China’s appetite for soybeans. Last year, the US exported $12.6 billion of the legume to China, but imported just $1.2 billion of the country’s cooking oil, which has subsided in 2025 due to changing tax codes.

Although a cooking oil ban might not send Wall Street into meltdown like, say, a massive tariff on rare earth minerals or microchips, it could still stir up trouble.

“Never underestimate the power of the frying pan in geopolitics: The White House’s call is partly theater but not without teeth,” Running Point Capital Advisors CIO Michael Ashley Schulman told Brew Markets. “The threat is low on direct economic punch, but high on signaling, a reminder that no commodity is off the table in this feud. When cooking oil hits the tariff list, you know the trade war’s gone from simmer to sauté.”

What’s next? Trump is slated to meet China’s Xi Jinping later this month as the 90-day tariff moratorium ticks down and expires on November 10. Hopefully, trade tensions will drop to a simmer before then.—JD