US farmers caught in Trump-China trade war – who’ll buy the soybeans? | Trump tariffs

At the Purfeerst Farm in southern Minnesota, the soybean harvest has just wrapped up for the season. Silver grain elevators are filled with about 100,000 bushels of soybeans, which fetch about $10 apiece.

This year, however, the fate of soybeans and the people whose livelihoods depend on their sale is uncertain: American soybean farmers are stuck in the middle of a trade war between the United States and China, the largest buyer of soybeans intended to feed Chinese pigs.

“We’re going to have to find a home for these soybeans soon,” said Matt Purfeerst, a fifth-generation farmer on his family’s land. “They won’t stay in our trash forever. »

No other country buys as much U.S. soybeans as China – last year it was worth more than $12 billion. This year, the country didn’t buy a single dollar’s worth, depriving itself of the country that accounts for about half of U.S. soybean exports.

While Trump has said he intends to make some sort of payment to soybean farmers hit by the tariffs, announcing a specific plan is on hold pending a government shutdown. He said in a Truth Social article last week that he would soon meet with China’s president and that “soy will be a major topic of discussion.”

The White House blamed Democrats for the government shutdown and the delay in their response to the Guardian on Wednesday, falsely saying they were prioritizing health care for migrants over farmers.

“President Trump, [Treasury] Secretary [Scott] Bessent, and [Agriculture] Secretary [Brooke] Rollins is always listening to the needs of our farmers, who played a crucial role in the president’s victory in November,” said spokesperson Anna Kelly. “Unfortunately, Congressional Democrats have blocked progress on this issue with their extended shutdown to serve illegal immigrants instead of America’s farmers. No decisions have been made, but we look forward to sharing some good news soon.

Purfeerst’s family farm grows soybeans and corn and has a few beef cattle. The job is a 24-hour combination of engineering, business, manual labor and environmental science. And it is increasingly difficult for family farms to achieve this. The costs of propane, fertilizer and seed have increased, he said, and the prices of the products they sell don’t make up for the increased costs.

Soybean farmers have become “the current model of how this particular segment is affected,” he said. The farm recently hosted Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar for a visit to discuss the impact of tariffs, but Purfeerst said political affiliations don’t matter.

“Only 1% of the population is involved in [agriculture] more,” he said. “And what gets really difficult is this perception of agriculture, whether it’s tariffs and prices or environmental issues, farmers seem to sort of be the line of fire for a lot of things.”

Agricultural areas voted for Trump in 2024, as did much of rural America. An analysis by Investigate Midwest shows Trump increased his support among agriculture-dependent countries in 2024, despite a trade war during his first term that negatively affected farmers.

“I’m not going to detail who I voted for, but I should just say that at this point you have to decide who you think will be the best leader in the country and move on with your life,” Purfeerst said. “And in four years, you’ll be able to vote again. That’s the beauty of our society. It’s not an 80-year regime. It’s a four-year cycle. It’s hard to say what’s going to happen. I mean, everyone has their pros and cons.”

Purfeerst has several options for his soybeans: Because of his farm’s location, he can sell it domestically to soybean crushing facilities in nearby towns, sell it on the railroad market, or sell it in Minneapolis and put the product on barges on the Mississippi River. Other soybean farmers, particularly those in more remote parts of the Midwest where soybeans are primarily produced, are not so lucky.

Stories from every part of the country where soybeans are grown have surfaced in recent weeks – Arkansas, Illinois, Nebraska, Indiana and the Dakotas. Farmers face higher costs for inputs such as fertilizer and equipment. They are counting on China as a buyer. Soybeans that stay in the bins too long are exposed to bad weather and pests. Prices fluctuate, so it’s a gamble to hang in there that can sometimes pay off, or sometimes lose money.

“Let’s say tomorrow we get a trade deal with China and it’s friendly to soybeans. All of a sudden you could see this market go from $10 to $12 in three or four days,” Purfeerst said. “So that makes it extremely difficult from a risk management perspective: When do you market your crop and how many eggs do you put in that basket? The potential is $12, but if we don’t get a trade deal it could go up to $9… There’s tremendous volatility in the soybean sector.”

The soy industry has been warning for months that China’s exit from the market would be devastating, calling on the Trump administration to strike a trade deal that would spare farmers. The American Soybean Association wrote a letter to Trump in August, saying the nation’s soybean farmers were “on a commercial and financial precipice” and “cannot survive a prolonged trade conflict with our largest customer.”

Tim Walz, the Democratic governor of Minnesota, declared the first week of October Soy Week, saying in his statement that “our soybean farmers are facing a crisis they have not seen since the 1980s.”

“They produced a bumper crop this year, just to find out they have nowhere to sell their crop thanks to Trump’s trade policies,” Walz said. “Minnesota has the best beans in the world – I encourage Minnesotans to stand with our farmers and continue to advocate for federal trade reform.”

This isn’t the first time a Trump trade plan has hurt soybean farmers: In 2018, a trade war led to a significant reduction in soybean exports to China. Since then, the market has rebounded, even as China increased its purchases of soybeans from Brazil and Argentina, stockpiling imports earlier this year.

Republican lawmakers said they sympathized with farmers and wanted to find a way to help them. James Comer, a Republican congressman from Kentucky, said this week that soybean farmers are not responsible for the problem they are facing.

“They planted this crop assuming these foreign markets would be there,” Comer said during a recent television appearance. “I think we need to do something to help soybean farmers.”

A bailout is “really just a Band-Aid,” although it’s one that many farmers would welcome while they are currently under pressure, Purfeerst said. Most farmers would prefer an open, tariff-free market for their produce, letting the market dictate prices. They don’t want the current trade war to affect a long-term relationship that represents a significant portion of the market. There should also be more emphasis on increasing domestic uses of soybeans, although a long-term plan like this won’t help farmers who are currently stuck, he said.

“There are farms that are struggling to make money on their soybean acres, and we have to remember: No matter what payment we get, no matter the dollar amount, if we get anything, it doesn’t go into our back pocket,” he said. “We have a fertilizer bill. We have to pay the seed bill. There are a lot of payments. So in reality, that money could stay in the farmer’s hands for a month, until it is spent on inputs for next year.”