, Columnist
The ABCD of Soybean Tariffs
The pain will mostly be felt by processors that turn the U.S. crop into Chinese meal and oil.
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If you want to know who'll suffer most from the 25 percent tariff that China is considering slapping on U.S. soybean exports, don't look to American farmers or Chinese carnivores. The real victims are much more likely to be the grains processors that stand between those two groups.
To see why, consider the oddities of the soybean market. Most consumers encounter the legumes as edamame beans or the raw material for tofu and soy milk, but the trade is dominated by less visible uses. Almost 80 percent of the global crop is turned into meal for animal feed, and a further 15 to 20 percent goes into making cooking oil and biodiesel, with only a sliver left over for human consumption.