“We’re already getting below break-even at the current time,“ said Jim Martin, a fifth-generation Illinois farmer who grows soybeans and corn.
The president’s 10-percent “baseline” rate on goods from most US trading partners except Mexico and Canada took effect Saturday.
With talk of retaliation, farmers, a key support base in Trump's 2024 re-election campaign, are again in the crossfire and bracing for losses.
China, the third-biggest importer of American farm goods behind Canada and Mexico, is set to be hard hit, with a 34-percent US duty on its products piling on an earlier 20-percent levy.
The tariffs mean businesses pay more to import US products, hurting American farmers' competitiveness.
“There is less incentive for them to purchase US soybeans. It is cheaper to get them out of Brazil by far,“ said Michael Slattery, who grows corn, soybeans and wheat in the Midwest state of Wisconsin.
But the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said China’s purchases last year dropped 15 percent from 2023 “as soybean and corn sales fell amid rising competition from South America.”
“The loss of this market is a very big deal, because it’s expensive to find other buyers,“ said Christopher Barrett, a Cornell University professor whose expertise includes agricultural economics.
With all trading partners now targeted, farmers will likely have a harder time finding new markets, he said.
“More than 20 percent of farm income comes from exports, and farmers rely on imports for crucial supplies like fertilizer and specialized tools,“ the American Farm Bureau Federation warned this week.
The International Dairy Foods Association cautioned Wednesday that “broad and prolonged tariffs” on top trading partners and growing markets risk undermining billions in investments to meet global demand.
While the department provided $23 billion to help farmers hit by trade disputes in 2018 and 2019, Martin in Illinois likened the bailouts to “a band-aid, a temporary fix on a long-term problem.”
Martin, like other producers, hopes for more trade deals with countries beyond China.
He is bracing for losses this year and next.
“I’ve attempted to sell as much as I can of the soybeans and corn in advance, before Trump began to indicate the amount of tariffs he was going to charge,“ he said.
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