UPDATE: Saturday, Oct 4, 2025 · 3:46:02 PM +00:00 · Merlin196360
Oops. Looks like Caleb Ragland does read and pays some attention to the news.
This week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the U.S. government was in negotiations to extend a $20 billion swap line to the Argentine government and potentially purchase the country’s foreign bonds. Almost immediately after, a reported 20 shiploads of Argentine soybeans were purchased by China after the Argentine government announced it would waive taxes on its soybean exports.
Upon this news, ASA President Caleb Ragland issued the following statement:
“U.S. soybean farmers have been clear for months: the administration needs to secure a trade deal with China. China is the world’s largest soybean customer and typically our top export market. The U.S. has made zero sales to China in this new crop marketing year due to 20% retaliatory tariffs imposed by China in response to U.S. tariffs. This has allowed other exporters, Brazil and now Argentina, to capture our market at the direct expense of U.S. farmers. The frustration is overwhelming. U.S. soybean prices are falling, harvest is underway, and farmers read headlines not about securing a trade agreement with China, but that the U.S. government is extending $20 billion in economic support to Argentina while that country drops its soybean export taxes to sell 20 shiploads of Argentine soybeans to China in just two days.
U.S. farmers cannot wait and hope any longer. ASA is calling on President Trump and his negotiating team to prioritize securing an immediate deal on soybeans with China. The farm economy is suffering while our competitors supplant the United States in the biggest soybean import market in the world.”
As others have pointed out before, I really think this deal with Argentina is sticking in the craws of American farmers.
And to make matters worse, this is what NBC News is reporting about a text message between AG Secretary Rollins and Treasurey Secretary Bessent:
Tensions inside the Trump administration over China, Argentina and the soybean farmers broke into the open last week.
While attending the U.N. General Assembly, Bessent received a text message from a contact labeled “BR.”
“We bailed out Argentina yesterday … and in return, the Argentine’s removed their export tariff on grains, reducing their price, and sold a bunch of soybeans to China at a time when we would normally be selling to China,” read the message, widely presumed to come from Rollins.
“Soy prices are dropping further because of it. This gives China more leverage on us,” the message concluded.
Spokespeople for Bessent and Rollins did not respond to questions about the text message exchange.
In other words, the supergenius Trump and his genius Bessent didn't think the Argentinians would do this to the U.S.
A small light bulb is starting to flicker above the head of Caleb Ragland, president of the American Soybean Association and Trump fan. You may recall that it was only a few weeks ago that Ragland could not say the word “tariff” as a major contributing factor to the upcoming Farmeggedon. Actually, he didn’t say the word tariff in his latest interview, but he’s stepped up his criticism of — how to say it? — America’s dealing with China.
Here’s the lastest salvo from Ragland on the situation with soybean farmers:
Caleb Ragland, a ninth-generation farmer in Magnolia, Kentucky, took a break from the fall harvest to describe how President Donald Trump’s tariffs slammed the door to his largest soybean customer: China.
Soybeans were the country's largest agricultural export last year, worth more than $24 billion. Half the crop went to China. But Ragland told USA TODAY that China hasn't bought any of this year’s U.S. crop after their retaliatory taxes to Trump's tariffs drove the price too high.
“We need to not punch our customers in the face with tariffs,” said Ragland, 39, who has a 4,500-acre farm down the road from where Abraham Lincoln was born. “Throwing rocks at each other isn’t good for either one of us.”
And who might be “punching” his customers in the face? It’s now someone named “We.” To coin a phrase from a movie, “Who’s this ‘We’ white man?” I don’t recall that I threw punches or rocks at China. And I’m sure no one else on Daily Kos did either.
But Ragland certainly is making the rounds to media outlets. He was also interviewed by CNN, and Ragland had this to say about a potential farm bailout:
But speaking with CNN Thursday, American Soybean Association President Caleb Ragland said that a bailout wouldn’t be the golden ticket that Trump has made it out to be, as American farmers still need a market to sell their products.
“Right now, our largest export market in China is a zero buyer,” Ragland said. “They buy as many soybeans as all of our other export markets combined. And right now, with them having not entered into purchase U.S. soybeans, it is hurting prices and it is causing lots of uncertainty as a whole.”…
“Government payments and programs never make farmers’ bottom line whole. It will oftentimes serve as a Band-Aid on a wound,” Ragland, a soybean farmer himself, told CNN. “What we need is markets and opportunity so we can actually make a profit and recoup the large investment that farmers have made.”
Yes, no shit Sherlock. Ragland was initially a big supporter of Trump’s tariffs earlier this year. Like other farmers, Ragland believes that Trump is a powerful man and great negotiator, and his tariffs were part of a master plan to make China bend to America’s will and agree to fairer trade deals.
Yes, Ragland is every bit as delusional as all other Trump cultists. Why he voted for Trump all three times! Ragland believes like all other farmers that Trump somehow negotiated a better trade deal with China in Trump 1.0, BUT JOE BIDEN DID NOT ENFORCE THAT TRADE DEAL. Therefore, all the good that Trump did was undone by Joe Biden.
It’s bullshit, but it’s what farmers believe. Its how they all got collective amnesia about the first trade war with China. The Phase One Deal with China never had an enforcement mechanisms, and most of the tariffs on China remained in place.
But it was all Joe Biden’s fault in the end. It always is. Trump can never fail.
Sadly, as I and many others have pointed out time and time again, Ragland and his fellow soybean farmers are truly fucked. China has found other producers of soybeans to buy from — Brazil and Argentina. And it’s a big reason why the Chinese will not buy from American farmers now.
THE. CHINESE. MARKET. FOR. AMERICAN. SOYBEAN. FARMERS. IS. GONE.
Ragland and other farmers are still desperate for Trump to pull a Pleistocene size rabbit out of a very small hat. But I don’t think the Chinese wil be very accomodating to Trump and his dumbass voters. And Ragland cannot bring himself to say, “Oh Lord! I’ve shot myself in the foot by voting for Trump!”
Look on the bright side Ragland. You will get a Golden Ticket out of Donald Trump instead.
