Omaha, Nevada – Entering this year, most American farmers hope to break even record small profits if they can find a way to limit their high costs. But now, after China retaliates against President Donald Trump, they face the largest export market for many crops.
“There is nothing wrong with the current farm economy,” said Caleb Ragland, a Kentucky farmer.
Soybean farmers have special reasons to worry because half of their crops are exported, and China has long been the biggest buyer. Last year, China also purchased a lot of American corn, beef, chicken, sorghum and other crops, part of a $24.65 billion spent on U.S. agricultural products. Now, as China has a 34% tariff on all U.S. products, all of them are expensive in China in other tariffs imposed earlier this year.
Crop prices fell as much as stocks after Trump announced his tariffs earlier this week.
Tim Dufault’s farm is located in northwest Minnesota, just about 80 miles south of Canada. But it’s not a good year, as crop prices aren’t enough to cover the rising costs, with prices falling by $25 per acre over the past two days.
Dufault said he was concerned that these new tariffs could shut down many farmers, including young farmers who rented land when he retired to this year, as they may not do anything in 2025.
“I just hope God can keep doing business,” said Dufour, an active farmers of the Free Trade Group, who promotes open markets.
One of the biggest long-term concerns is that American farmers and ranchers will lose market share as China turns to Brazil and other countries to buy soybeans, beef, chicken and other consumed soybeans. China will buy a lot of sorghum because it is distilled to a beverage as popular as whiskey in the United States, but they will be taken from other countries.
Farmers endured Trump’s previous trade war with China during his first term. But this time, Trump’s tariffs have been extended worldwide, so China may not be the last country to retaliate against its own tariffs.
Can farmers receive government assistance?
The only way most farmers survive Trump’s last trade war is to have hundreds of millions of dollars in government aid payments, but it’s unclear whether he will do so this time. He gave them more than $22 billion in aid payments in 2019 and nearly $46 billion in aid payments in 2020, although that year also included aid related to Covid Pandemic.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told Fox News this week that she doesn’t think large aid payments are necessary now, although she hasn’t known that for months. “But if so, then the president has been saying that he has a firm commitment to our farmers, our ranchers, and our great rural communities in America, so if it is actually necessary, we will make sure we are ready.”
“But none of us do this,” said Andy Hineman, a farmer who is vice president of the Kansas Cereal Sorghum Producers Association. “We don’t want to live on government handouts. We’d rather sell the crops we grow.”
But Bryant Kagay, a farmer who is part of Missouri’s friendly Kagay Farms, said he said he “did not believe that these tariffs (how they are laid out today) will last forever.”
He also doesn’t like the idea of getting aid from the government.
“I really hate it seems to be the solution, we just pay farmers some paid fees to offset that,” Kagay said. “I think the federal government, which has exceeded spending today, is not the solution to this.”
The farmers’ hope is that Trump’s tariffs will lead to negotiations with other countries that will lower tariffs and other trade barriers.
“This is the type of positive development we can do, and it’s good for everyone involved, and that’s what we need to look for,” Lagran said. ” Rather than getting higher and higher tariffs beat each other, it’s like punching each other’s holes. We won’t get anything from it. It’s just going to hurt us. It’s going to be my encouragement to the government, it’s to look for opportunities and get some deals actively.”
Associated Press writer Nick Ingram contributed to the Missouri report.
This article was generated from the Automation News Agency feed without the text being modified.
