The American Soybean Association (ASA) is clearly freaking out over Donald Trump’s trade war with China based on their latest press statement and rightfully so. China is the chief export market for America's soybean farmers, which were also the top U.S. agricultural export in 2017 at $21.6 billion (more than double the dollar amount of the second closest ag export, corn).
As Iowa soybean farmer and ASA president John Heisdorffer noted, the 25 percent tariffs Trump has now imposed on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods will be a disaster for soybean famers.
“The math is simple,” Heisdorffer said, “You tax soybean exports at 25 percent, and you have serious damage to U.S. farmers.”
The farmers seemed to be hoping against hope Trump would manage to avoid this head-to-head escalation with China. But with the face-off commencing last Friday, soybean crops will be hit hard. In 2017, China imported 31 percent of U.S. soybean production. It's a market that's expected to balloon over the coming years and one that U.S. soybean farmers will likely be cut out of.
The ASA statement is practically desperate in its devastation.
When the possibility of tariffs first arose, ASA asked President Trump to consider other policies for reducing the U.S. trade deficit with China. Then ASA organized a fly-in to urge Congress to encourage the Administration to rethink the tariffs. Finally, in a last-ditch social media effort earlier this week, individual soybean farmers who will be directly affected by the trade conflict attached their photographs to statements appealing directly to the President and his advisors.
Eight of the top ten soybean export states voted for Trump in 2016.