Iowa Soybean Association President Tom Adam is urging the Trump administration to prioritize a trade deal with China and to support soybean farmers who are without their biggest market.
China typically buys 60% of global soybean exports, and the U.S. used to be China’s preferred supplier until it turned to Brazil during the trade wars of the first Trump administration.
Now, China appears to have turned to Argentina for its soybeans, and U.S. farmers worry they’ll be stuck with a bountiful harvest and nowhere to sell it.
China placed an order with Argentina shortly after the U.S. agreed to a $20 billion bailout deal with the South American country. According to the American Soybean Association, China typically purchases soybeans from the U.S. before harvest begins. A couple weeks into the harvest season in Iowa, China has not placed an order, presumably in protest of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.
“Agriculture thrives when America leads on trade,” Adam said in a statement Thursday, Oct. 2. “We can’t afford to let uncertainty and political maneuvering erode the markets farmers have spent decades cultivating.”
Adam said the mood in rural Iowa is one of “anxiousness and frustration” because of “trade policy that’s severely straining relationships” with key trade partners.
Adam, who farms near Harper, said President Donald Trump’s current trade policies are a “bitter pill” for farmers, despite the fact that many farmers voted to elect him.
“With strong yields and a nearly ideal harvest season underway across Iowa and large sections of rural America, grain bins will soon be filled with quality U.S. soy that needs to find a home,” Adam wrote.
Iowa Soybean Association calls on Trump to expedite a deal with China
An Iowa State University report from July estimated that reciprocal tariffs — where the country places the same tariff amount on U.S. goods as the U.S. has placed on their goods — could cause losses between $191 million and $1.49 billion to the Iowa soybean industry.
While soybeans stand to lose the most, according to the report, the corn, ethanol and hog industries in Iowa also are projected to lose hundreds of millions because of the reciprocal tariffs.
The Iowa Soybean Association urged the administration to broker a trade agreement with China that “immediately expedites soybean purchases.”
Trump has said he plans to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a trade summit at the end of October, but Adam said every day without a Chinese trade deal “closes the window tighter” on the “critical” sales period for soybeans from October to February.
The release from Iowa Soybean Association said this year, Iowa farmers are set to harvest about 550 million bushels of soybeans on 9.3 million acres.
With no soybean sales to China currently on the books, farmers are worried they’ll have to find a place to store their crops or find a different market.
Adam also urged Congress to “provide immediate trade mitigation funding” to farmers to tide them over until a deal can be reached.
U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said Tuesday that farmers would rather have a market to sell into than rely on a government payout. He also said the administration might find a solution using tariff money instead of congressionally allocated funds.
Adam said a federal farm payment was “not ideal” but that it would “enable many farmers to survive another year.”
He asked the administration to finalize Renewable Volume Obligations — something EPA proposed earlier this year —to boost the biofuels industry. Soybeans are used in making biodiesel, and a boost in the industry would give farmers another soybean market to sell into.
“The crop is here,” Adam said. “The quality is proven. The demand exists. What’s missing is the resolve to reconnect America’s farmers with a world of buyers who want to purchase our soybeans.”
Find this story at Iowa Capital Dispatch, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions:kobradovich@iowacapitaldispatch.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowa soybean president urges trade deal with China; calls Trump policies ‘bitter pill’
Reporting by Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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