The question facing many soybean farmers these days relating to Donald Trump's trade war with China is: "How long can I hold out?"
That's exactly what Nebraska farmer Doug Saathoff told the Los Angeles Times about his dilemma over the falling price of soybeans and whether his business could absorb the financial blow. For now, Saathoff still supports Trump, but it may be a test of time.
Saathoff can wait it out for at least a few more months partly because he was able to sell some of his fall harvest in advance, before soybean prices dropped. The question is: Will he and other farmers stick with Trump when they really start to feel the pain?
China's retaliatory tariffs have hit soybean farmers particularly hard as exports plummeted 14.1 percent in July and prices have dropped from $11 per bushel earlier this year to $9 per bushel now. That's basically a "break-even point" for most soybean farmers, according to the Times.
“He’s gonna kill us,” groused Joel Samuleson, 81, at a meeting with his fellow farmers, many of them Trump supporters.
About the only thing they all agreed on was their collective disdain for the administration’s plan to provide aid to farmers.
Otherwise known as Trump's $12 billion payoff to farmers in hopes of keeping them happy before the midterms.
Just a guess that very few of those soybean farmers have heard what Trump told donors at a fundraiser in Utica, New York, earlier this week.
Don’t blame me for that. This is the guy many farmers are still trying to support as he rips their livelihoods out from under them and then complains: “The soybeans—they keep talking about the soybeans.” Yeah, Trump, they keep talking about the soybeans—it’s their life, you moron.
