Big Beautiful Tariffs are Playing Hell with US Soybean Growers

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Soybeans have long been an important export crop for US farmers, and my state, Missouri, ranks 7th nationwide in soybean production and 6th in the number of farms which produce the important export crop.  But this year has been a tough one for soybean producers in the United States, and a major portion of their troubles can be traced directly and quickly back to Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs.  Not only are those arbitrary tariffs raising the price of imports that farmers need, things like fertilizer, machinery parts, and farm equipment, they have also spurred other countries to issue counter tariffs which raise the price of US crops that are sent abroad - and thus hurt US sales.

A huge part of the overall problem for US soybean growers it that the Chinese market for their product has essentially closed.  Last year the Chinese bought a whopping $12.6 billion in US soybeans, but sales this year have been $0.00.  Not a single US soybean has been sold to China since May.  Trump has succeeded in his promise to make America great again - South America!  Brazil and Argentina are selling soybeans to China hand over fist, while North American soybeans sit in warehouses and farmers pray for higher prices..

The fact is that Chinese agricultural importers won't (and can't afford to) buy US soybeans.  When Trump imposed a 34% import tariff on China last April, the government of China fired back with a 25% tariff on US soybeans.  Meanwhile Missouri'ss six GOP members of congress, whose districts include almost all of the farmland in the state, continue to cheer on Trump's big, beautiful spending bill and his tariff program - a program that Congress should be running but chose instead to abdicate to the whims and petty grievances of Donald Trump.

And the soybean growers suffer.  They can sell their crops for literally less than it cost to grow them, which doesn't sound like a smart business practice, or they can store them in warehouses and hope for a miracle, which also sounds like a crapshoot.  But the farmers aren't the only ones who are losing out due to the tariffs.  All manner of people involved in growing, harvesting, trading, marketing, transporting, and shipping the crop as well as others on the periphery of the enterprise suffer from the diminished trade.  

The soybean situation in the United States today is a  big, bad mess,  and it was all avoidable.

Are we winning yet, Donald?