Soy Boom State Finds Itself in Eye of Trade Storm

North Dakota -- home to the fourth-smallest U.S. population -- is suddenly finding itself at the center of the escalating trade war between the world’s largest economies.

Historically a wheat-growing region, the state’s growers have been upping their soybean output at breakneck speed in recent decades. Positioned closer to western U.S. ports than most areas of the soy belt, farmers were in a unique position to capitalize on China’s skyrocketing demand for the oilseed that’s used to make animal feed and cooking oil. Now that the crop has been caught in the crossfire of the U.S.-China trade spat, that demand is disappearing.