MAGA Farmers Are Reaping What They Sowed

Over the years, this blog has often looked at voters who vote against their own economic interest as they embrace the bait of "god, guns, and gays" and calls to normalize racism broadcast by Republican candidates and office holders.  Here in Virginia rural voters overwhelmingly support Republicans even as the "big beautiful bill" is set to deprive many of access to health care, force rural hospitals to close and cut social programs so that billionaires can have large tax cuts.  On a national level another group that has fallen for Republican bait are farmers a good percentage of which face potential bankruptcy as the Felon's tariffs drive away gain and soybean purchasers, particularly China. Throughout the 2024 campaign the Felon touted his coming tariffs and trade war, particularly with China, and talked about slashing government programs, yet rural farmers flocked to the Felon's banner, motivated I suspect by things other than the Felon's economic plan, even though many refuse to admit this. Now, they are paying the price with some suggestions that one-third of farmers are facing potential bankruptcy due to lost export markets.  A piece in Politico looks at what the Felon's tariffs and trade wars have done to the agriculture industry:

Farmers across the country are looking at record yields during their fall harvest. They may have nowhere to sell them.

As a result of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, crop farmers have lost a significant export market, driving down the price of top U.S. crops like soybeans and corn, even as Trump’s tariffs drive up the cost of farm equipment and fertilizer.

Now, as they approach the end of growing season, those farmers, farm groups and Republican lawmakers from agriculture-heavy states are warning of a looming crisis: crops piling up with nowhere to put them and farmers ending the year deep in the red.

 They’re still not ready to blame Trump and his trade policies, however, a sign of just how much grace the agriculture community continues to grant Trump, even as his ambitious efforts to restructure the global trade economy clash directly with their economic interests. This fall could prove the stiffest loyalty test yet, as the administration struggles to make progress in trade negotiations it’s promised will finally bring the ag industry some relief.

“When our members are in the fields harvesting, they will be staring at a visual representation of this economy and this looming farm crisis. They will be looking at literal piles of corn and other row crops,” said Lesly Weber McNitt, vice president of public policy at the National Corn Growers Association. “They don’t know where it’s going.

“I think the farmers realize, particularly crop producers, this is not going to be a good year by any stretch of the imagination,” said Michael Langemeier, the director of Purdue’s Center for Commercial Agriculture. “But when you ask things about the long-term policy environment, they’re always positive related to those questions.”

That faith in the Trump administration’s long-term policy objectives hinges, in large part, on the administration’s promises to ink new trade agreements with other countries that could pave the way for more sales of U.S. agricultural goods abroad.

Rep. Mark Alford (R-Mo.), who represents a mix of suburban and rural areas between Kansas City and Jefferson City, . . . . . has continued to defend Trump’s trade policies as a way to pressure other countries to open up their markets — particularly China, the largest foreign purchaser of U.S. soybeans over the past decade and a major buyer of other American ag products, as well.

“China is the linchpin in all of this,” Alford said. “And I’m trusting that President Trump is going to strike a deal that is going to equalize our trade with China and also restore some of the imports they’ve had for our grains, our beans and our meat.”

Other farm state Republicans are toeing a similar line.

Trump’s trade negotiations, however, aren’t poised to offer any immediate breakthroughs to ease farmers’ pain. The talks with China have proceeded particularly slowly, with the president last month granting another extension for negotiations — to Nov. 12. The U.S. legal battle over Trump’s tariffs, which is likely to be decided by the Supreme Court in the coming months, gives the Chinese government even more incentive to slow-walk the talks.

As it stands now, Washington and Beijing are frozen in a low-grade trade war, with double-digit tariffs on each other’s exports. While not as high as the 100-plus percent duties the two sides briefly imposed in May, the tariffs, coming on top of levies imposed during Trump’s first term, have forced both countries to look for other sources of key goods.

In 2024, for example, China purchased $12.64 billion in soybeans. But China has not yet made any orders for soybeans since May, according to the American Soybean Association, as it shifts more purchases to Brazil and other countries.

Even as the Trump administration has promised to rejuvenate agriculture exports to China, it’s pointing to preliminary trade agreements with other partners it says will open up alternative ag markets. . . . . They still haven’t come close to making up for the loss of the massive Chinese market.

Combined, Japan and the European Union purchased $3.4 billion worth of soybeans in 2024 — a quarter of the $12 billion China purchased. And while both trading partners purchased more corn than China in 2024, the combined amount was still smaller than what China was able to purchase in its 2022 peak.

Hopes that the administration would be able to open major new markets, like India, have also failed to come to fruition. Instead, the administration slapped a 50 percent tariff on the world’s fourth-largest economy last month, souring the relationship and pushing New Delhi closer to China.

Republicans also cut into Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding in order to give farmers a $60 billion boost in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but that won’t take effect until the next crop year.

“I’ve not seen any evidence that there’s any proposal coming from the administration for direct financial aid,” Moran said. “Farmers have always told me, and I think they believe it, that they want markets, not payments. And we need markets.”

That need is about to become a lot more tangible, as farmers start to harvest their crops and top out their grain storage.