The tariffs imposed on American exports like soybeans has begun to take its toll.
Food writer Corby Kummer explained how the trade war is affecting farmers on the ground. He called it a “wrecking ball the Trump administration is taking to U.S. farmers.”
“U.S. farmers may never rebound from the short-term loss because of this misguided, idiotic trade war that the President has initiated with China over steel and other imports and theoretically U.S. jobs,” Kummer said.
He explained that China is adapting to the higher price of U.S. soybeans by finding other countries to buy from.
“China is saying ‘we’re going to do just fine,’ and U.S. soybean producers are going to have no market for their soybeans,” he said. “They spent decades building up the Chinese market.”
Kummer said American farmers had offered more advantageous contracts to the Chinese than competitors, but now that hard work will go to waste.
“There’s $12 billion of U.S. taxpayer money that’s going to bail out U.S. farmers in the short term for this war they had no interest in starting, and that the taxpayers are now footing the bill for,” he said. “This is long term destruction.”
Food writer Corby Kummer is a senior editor at The Atlantic, columnist for The New Republic and a senior lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition and Policy.
