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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