US Soybean Farmers Anxious as China Moves to Other Markets

TaiwanPlus News

US soybean farmers are anxious as China has effectively stopped buying US soybeans amid an escalating tariff war. US President Donald Trump says he will speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping about it at their upcoming meeting at the APEC Summit in South Korea. But as China switches over to buying soybeans from countries like Argentina, US farmers say they just want trade to go back to normal.

Transcript

00:00it's harvest season in the american midwest but that's cause for concern more than celebration

00:08for local soybean farmers like chris gold there's a lot of pain going on in the countryside right

00:13now the pain comes from the loss of his biggest customer china china has been our number one

00:21customer for soybeans and i don't know exactly when you start counting that but let's say the

00:25last i'll say 20 years i mean a significant portion of our soybeans have gone to china

00:32and when we started disrupting international trade they kind of started looking for alternate

00:38sources as far as i know for the 2025 crop they've bought zero u.s soybeans

00:43u.s president donald trump says china isn't buying u.s soy for negotiating purposes

00:48adding that soybeans will be a major topic of discussion at a planned meeting with chinese

00:53president xi jinping at the apex summit this month soybeans used to be the top u.s export to china

01:01accounting for more than half of america's total soy exports last year about 12.6 billion u.s dollars

01:08worth but as tit-for-tat tariffs between the countries have escalated china put a 20 percent

01:13tariff on u.s soybeans and chinese imports of it have effectively stopped since may meanwhile

01:20it's shifting to buying from countries like argentina trump previously said u.s tariff money

01:25could be used to help farmers and we're going to take some of that tariff money that we made we're

01:30going to give it to our farmers who are for a little while going to be hurt until it kicks in the

01:37tariffs kick into their benefit which ultimately the farmers are going to be making a fortune but it's a

01:44process of it has to kick it all right but u.s farmers might not be the only ones getting a boost

01:49the u.s and argentina are currently negotiating a potential 20 billion u.s dollar currency swap to

01:55bolster the south american country's financial system soybean sales could be a part of those

02:00negotiations but farmers like gold say they want more trade not more aid we need our government to

02:08to to do their job which is not write emergency aid checks to us but to promote worldwide trade so

02:20we can earn our income like we need to with billions of dollars on the line all eyes now look

02:26to the meeting between leaders of the world's two largest economies hank shu and chris goren for taiwan

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