Tariffs sow trouble for US soybean farmers, USDA data suggests

(CNN) – Right now, the Supreme Court is weighing President Donald Trump’s use of emergency powers to implement tariffs.

However, in the meantime, soybean farmers are among those feeling the impact of the trade war, even as China has agreed to purchase soybeans from the U.S. as part of recent trade negotiations.

John Bartman, a fifth-generation soybean farmer in Illinois, has crops that contribute to the United States’ largest agricultural export.

Last year, it valued at more than $24 billion, according to USDA data.

China bought 53% of those exports, but this past September, imported zero.

Bartman says, “It’s what we do in this country, we export food, and we can’t do that right now.”

In May, China played an effective embargo on U.S. soybeans in retaliation to Trump administration tariffs, instead buying soybeans from other countries.

In October, there was some hope for struggling farmers like Bartman when the U.S. met with China.

Sean Hyde, a business professor at University of Southern California, says the U.S. was “able to get the Chinese to back down from a prohibition of rare earth metals exports to the U.S. In exchange, the U.S. would drop half of that fentanyl tariff” and China “would buy 25 million metric tons of soybeans every year, beginning this year.”

However, new data from the agriculture department shows China has made only two purchases of soybeans totaling 232,000 metric tons of soybeans since the summit.

The American Soybean Association said although that number has gone up, it’s still well below the 12 million metric tons China promised to buy by year’s end.

Caleb Ragland, president of the American Soybean Association, says, “We have cautious optimism that it’ll take place, but, in reality, actions ultimately are the factor here.”