The latest round of grain export inspection data from USDA, out Monday morning, showed week-over-week improvements for corn, soybeans and wheat, with corn and wheat also moderately beating out trade estimates for the week ending December 12.

Soybeans continue to represent the highest overall volume of these three grains, pulling in another 46.3 million bushels last week. That was slightly ahead of the prior week’s tally of 45.9 million bushels but a bit behind the average trade guess of 48.8 million bushels.

China was the No. 1 destination for soybean export inspections last week (as it often is, even amid the ongoing trade war with the U.S.), with 25.2 million bushels. That’s hardly a surprise, as its purchases of U.S. soybeans has picked up in recent weeks as the two nations finalized a phase-one trade agreement. More than a dozen other countries were also on this week’s ledger, including Pakistan (2.4 million), South Korea (2.1 million) and Mexico (2.1 million).

Corn export inspections climbed to 27.0 million bushels last week, moderately besting the prior week’s tally of 20.7 million and trade estimates of 18.9 million. Marketing year-to-date totals for 2019/20 are still severely behind last year’s pace of 630.1 million bushels, however, reaching a cumulative total of just 284.5 million bushels last week.

Mexico was the top destination for U.S. corn export inspections last week, with 10.5 million bushels. Japan also accounted for 5.5 million bushels. A scattering of other countries was also on the ledger, with no one taking more than a single cargo of grain.

Wheat export inspections also came in ahead of analyst expectations after reaching 18.6 million bushels. The average trade guess was 11.5 million bushels. This week’s tally also beat out the prior week’s total of 14.7 million bushels. Marketing year-to-date totals of 498.8 million bushels remain nearly 16% ahead of last year’s pace.

Mexico topped all destinations for U.S. wheat export inspections, with 2.5 million bushels. Other countries of note last week included a broad range of geographies, including Japan, China, Thailand, Venezuela and Nigeria.

Click here to read last week’s entire data set from USDA.