TELL ME YA CHEESIN FAM?
I walk around a little edgy already
‘Tidal wave of problems’: With harvest here, Trump’s trade war pushes some US farmers to the brink
ByEric Bradner
,
Andrew Seger
,
Nicky Robertson
,
Jeremy Herb
6 hr ago
A worker prepares soybeans for ...
Farmers across the country are issuing increasingly urgent warnings that they’ll face grim consequences if they don’t get help selling this year’s bumper crop that many have begun harvesting.
Trade deals many had hoped would quickly emerge after President Donald Trump slapped tariffs on some of the United States’ biggest agricultural customers haven’t come. A farm bailout is no sure thing on Capitol Hill. And farmers — many of whom voted for Trump — say time is running out.
“It just seems like things have stalled all summer long,” said Brian Warpup, who grows corn and soybeans on his 3,900-acre farm in northeastern Indiana. “We’re always hopeful that those negotiations are moving forward, but yet with harvest here, patience may be running thin.”
Across the US, farmers describe increasingly dire circumstances stemming from a confluence of factors — trade wars, Trump’s immigration crackdown, inflation and high interest rates.
Though the challenges vary in different parts of the country, farmers in some cases, particularly on the West Coast, are struggling to find labor to pick their harvest. Others, especially in the Midwest, said they can’t sell what they’ve produced. And many are scrambling to find storage.
It’s led to pressures reminiscent of the trade wars from Trump’s first administration, when the federal government spent billions on bailouts to farmers.
The world’s biggest soybean buyer, China, is so far this year refusing to purchase American soybeans — a critical export that the US Department of Agriculture said was worth nearly $25 billion last year — turning instead to Brazil as part of Beijing’s response to the tariffs Trump imposed on Chinese goods in February.
Brazilian soybeans are unloaded from a ship at Yantai Port in China's Shandong province on June 17.
Tang Ke/VCG/Getty Images/File
That standoff has added to challenges farmers already faced entering the season: Prices of commodities are low compared to 2022 peaks, while prices for fertilizer, seeds and equipment are all up. High interest rates are exacerbating the financial squeeze.
What soybeans farmers can’t sell must be stored — and many say they’re short on grain bins. Warpup said he is rushing to sell corn that he’d typically store until spring to create room for more soybeans. Others could face even more costs as they pay for grain elevator storage.
Ryan Frieders, a corn and soybean farmer in Illinois, said the storage concerns are “like a tidal wave of problems coming towards Illinois.”
all of these cacs thought it was just going to be hell for AAs and Latinos
