Farmer John Bartman harvests soybeans near Harvard, Illinois.
Photographer: Christopher Dilts/Bloomberg
China’s Soybean Feud With Trump Leaves US Farmers With Huge Crops and Few Buyers
Beijing’s bid to pressure the president leaves US farmers without their biggest customer, just as harvest gets underway.
Each fall, US farmers harvest a soybean crop so immense, it covers more acres than Arizona. But this year, their biggest buyer — China — has walked away.
Beijing imposed retaliatory tariffs on US farm goods in March, effectively slamming the door shut on US soybean imports for commercial buyers before the harvest even began. The move has given China leverage in its trade war with President Donald Trump by squeezing the farmers who form a key part of his base. A country that last year purchased $13 billion of US beans — more than 20% of the entire crop — for animal feed and cooking oil officially still hasn’t booked a single shipment from this fall’s bounty. Seeking a trade deal, Trump and his counterpart Xi Jinping are scheduled to meet next week.