This year, thanks to Trump’s frenetic tariff spree, China has so far bought zero American soybeans. The largest customer for American farmers is shopping somewhere else, just as the crop is coming in.
Soybean farmers hurting as Trump tariffs effects felt
President Trump has acknowledged tariffs are hurting soybean farmers, the country’s largest agricultural export.
American farmers, now struggling due to President Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff policies, are in the middle of the annual soybean harvest.
And Trump has a plan – to rescue Argentina – even as that country exacerbates the economic harm felt by American soybean farmers.
Trump has always valued a slapdash scramble on the fly more than a long-term, cohesive plan. Just consider how this has played out in recent weeks. Soybeans are planted in May or June and harvested in September and October. Everyone, farmers and politicians, knows that timeline.
In 2024, American soybeans were a nearly $25 billion export, with China as the top importer, spending $12.6 billion.
A year later, thanks to Trump’s frenetic tariff spree, China has so far bought zero American soybeans. The largest customer for American farmers is shopping somewhere else, just as the crop is coming in.
Guess where that takes us: Argentina is more than happy to sell China soybeans. China bought a quarter of Argentina’s soybean crop on Sept. 23, 7 million metric tons. And China got a good deal, since Argentina suspended export taxes on that purchase.
Trump wants to make Argentina great again, apparently
Where was Trump while all that went down?
He was meeting at the United Nations on Sept. 23 with Argentine President Javier Milei, an international political ally, offering his “full backing and endorsement” for Milei’s second-term bid two years from now, even as he struggles right now to get Argentina’s tumultuous economy under control.
A journalist at the U.N. asked the U.S. president that day if he would bail out Argentina. Trump answered that he didn’t think that would be necessary, since he thought Milei has “done a fantastic job.”
That position didn’t survive 24 hours.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who met with Milei and Trump at the U.N., announced on social media the next morning that “we stand ready to do what is needed to support Argentina.” Bessent said that included a “$20 billion swap line,” an infusion of American dollars in Argentina’s central bank.
In other words, a bailout – the thing Trump said the day before wasn’t necessary. The politician who compulsively speaks about what a great dealmaker he is looks like he got played here.
American soybean farmers now sound like they’re not so sure which side Trump is on.
Caleb Ragland, a Kentucky soybean farmer and president of the American Soybean Association, pointed out the curious timing of Argentina dropping export taxes right as it sold crops to China and heard about an American bailout.
“U.S. soybean farmers have been clear for months: the administration needs to secure a trade deal with China,” Ragland wrote in a Sept. 24 statement released by his association. “China is the world’s biggest 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.”
Soybean farmers were already hurting from Trump’s tariff tirades
The American Soybean Association, in an Oct. 3 social media post, pointed to opposition among Democrats in the U.S. Senate to the $20 billion bailout for Argentina.
Thirteen Democrats in the Senate, plus Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, wrote to Trump on Sept. 30, citing Argentina’s cut-rate sales to China followed up by his administration’s efforts to craft a bailout.
They also directly linked the bailout to Milei’s political troubles back home as Argentina’s midterm elections loom in October.
“American soybean farmers ‒ who are already reeling from your sweeping tariffs ‒ deserve better,” the 14 senators wrote, calling on Trump to kill Argentina’s bailout. “Instead of subsidizing a foreign country to influence a midterm election on behalf of your friend – and further undermining America’s farmers in the process – you should prioritize lowering costs for American families and strengthening the nation’s agricultural competitiveness.”
Where is Trump on all this? In an Oct. 1 social media post, he complained: “The Soybean Farmers of our Country are being hurt because China is, for ‘negotiating’ reasons only, not buying. We’ve made so much money on Tariffs, that we are going to take a small portion of that money, and help our Farmers.”
Trump’s post made no mention of his role in all this. And, being Trump, he followed up with an Oct. 6 post that declared, “TARIFFS ARE MAKING OUR COUNTRY AN ECONOMIC POWER AGAIN.”
He might want to consult his Cabinet members about that.
An Associated Press photographer captured an image of Bessent’s phone at the U.N. on Sept. 23 as he was reading a text message that appeared to come from U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins about the bailout announcement and Argentina’s sale of soybeans to China. It said this: “Soy prices are dropping further because of it. This gives China more leverage on us.”
So Trump had a bailout for Argentina dialed up and ready to go when he met with Milei, just weeks before that country’s midterm elections, and just as Argentina was selling soybeans to what used to be America’s biggest foreign customer.
But a bailout for American soybean farmers, now in the middle of their harvest, is still just a concept, short on details, even as Trump said on Oct. 6 that he’ll take some action on “farm stuff” this week.
That timeline clearly demonstrates that American farmers are an afterthought for Trump in his tariff war, which doesn’t seem to be based on much thought at all.
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