(Global Times reporter Lee Zhang, Global Times special report in the United States, Global Times special reporter Chen Xin)The editor says:When the harvest of soybeans, corn and other crops in the United States is bumper, the Trump administration's tariff policy is pushing some American farmers to a desperate situation. According to a report by CNN on the 20th, farmers across the United States are issuing increasingly urgent warnings that if crops cannot be exported smoothly, they will face severe consequences. U.S. farmers say the situation has become increasingly severe amid a combination of factors such as trade wars, immigration policies, inflation and high interest rates. They called on the U.S. government to end the trade war with China as soon as possible.

The situation for the farmers is ¡°extremely severe.¡±

The American Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) recently broadcast an interview with ragland, president of the American Soybean Association. In the picture, ragland is sitting on a tractor and once again mentioned that the current soybean harvest season in the United States is currently in the harvest season, but China's order quantity is "zero". He made an urgent appeal to US President Trump: "What we need is the market and opportunities, and the Chinese market is crucial to our livelihood." In an interview with Fortune magazine, ragland warned that the harvest season of soybeans in the United States was ushering in, but the biggest buyer had not placed any orders, and the situation faced by soybean farmers was "extremely severe".

Lagrange¡¯s speech represented the hearts of the vast majority of U.S. beans farmers, and this year was the darkest year in my memory.¡±44-year-old Bean Donner lamented in an interview with The American Today.The Donner family¡¯s farm is located in northeast Arkansas, growing cotton, corn, soybeans and peanuts.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture¡¯s Overseas Agriculture Bureau, U.S. soybean exports to China reached $12.8 billion in 2024.But this year, farmers haven¡¯t received orders from the Chinese market.Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Indiana, as core soybean producing regions, are affected, with these states accounting for about half of the total U.S. soybean production.

Yahoo Finance said that typically by this season, about one-third of U.S. annual soybeans sales to China have been completed.This means that currently there should be 8 to 9 percent of total U.S. soybeans sold to China, but the actual turnover is zero.

For U.S. farmers, the current challenge is high yield yields that have continued in recent years, lowering commodity prices.The U.S. Department of Agriculture expects this year¡¯s soybean output to reach a record high, with prices falling by about 40 percent from a record high in 2022; corn prices fell by about 50 percent, and the sector expects this year¡¯s corn output to break the same record.

Meanwhile, the American Corn Farmers¡¯ Association says production costs for seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and machinery are still close to historic highs.

The U.S. Corn Farmers¡¯ Association said it was a ¡°economic crisis that swept through the U.S. countryside¡± and said it was the third year in a row that U.S. farmers faced rising negative profits. Chris Wanson, the association¡¯s chief economist, warned that tariffs could push up import costs and provoke U.S. corn importers to take retaliatory action to worsen the situation.

According to the U.S. soybean association, China, as an importer of about 60% of the world¡¯s soybeans, has shifted to the Brazilian market this year and if it still fails to reach a soybean agreement with China after the fall, the situation for U.S. soybeans will worsen further,¡± the U.S. soybeans association wrote in a letter to Trump in August, ¡°U.S. soybeans can¡¯t afford a long-term trade dispute between our biggest customers.¡±

A recent survey by the Federal Reserve showed that farmers are feeling operational pressure: farm income and credit conditions continue to deteriorate.Dunken, Chairman of the Agricultural Bureau of Illinois, said: ¡°I am concerned that young farmers are at greater risk for those who lack asset buffers.¡±

CNN said that the number of farm bankruptcies in the United States may rise. Farm bankruptcies rose 55% last year, according to the American Federation of Farm Bureaus. "That means some farmers will be cornered," Ragland said. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, farmers already have higher suicide rates than other populations. Ragland said that this phenomenon may unfortunately intensify. Jennings, CEO of Daitaas Holdings, a Tennessee agricultural technology and software company, said, "This is not an ordinary agricultural crisis. We call it'farm apocalypse '."

¡°It¡¯s a level five fire alert,¡± Alternet News Network said, ¡°Trump administration¡¯s economic and immigration policies are undermining U.S. farmers¡¯ livelihoods.¡± Tennessee Soybean Promotion Commission executive director Moping compared tariffs to ¡°the pain of thousands of knives.¡± Farmers urgently need the help of the federal government. Moping also said, ¡°Farmers have done everything they can do, they have managed their finances well, got a good harvest, but they can¡¯t change economic policies, nor can they change markets.

Impact Could Sweep Across Supply Chain

U.S. soybeans exports dropped sharply, its impact far beyond the peasant group. China International Trade Association executive director Ho Weiwei said on 22nd in an interview with the reporter of the Global Times that soybeans supply chain involves fertilizer, machinery, employment, etc., exports are also related to warehousing, transportation, insurance, finance, port terminals, agricultural machinery manufacturing and other industries, supporting the U.S. economy more than $400 billion.

According to the U.S. Freight Waves website, the soybean export crisis is rapidly affecting the U.S. truck transport, rail freight and port operations.As the number of soybean exports is sharply reduced, freight demand will face a cliff decline, and related jobs are at risk.

"This will undoubtedly have a substantial impact on them," said Steen Hawke, executive director of the American Soybean Transportation Alliance. "The sudden shrinking demand caused by geopolitical factors poses severe challenges to the freight rail industry and other transportation industries." He said that most soybeans produced in the Midwest are shipped by rail to ports in the Northwest and then shipped to sea.

Loughley, a senior researcher at Peterson Institute for International Economics, warned that the chain reaction caused by the loss of Chinese customers could sweep the whole supply chain, affecting warehouse workers, railway shunters, dock stevedores and local enterprises that rely on agricultural exports. "Tariffs will inevitably lead to a double drop in imports and exports, which will then impact the job market," Loughley said in an interview with Boston Public Radio in the United States. "This impact shows different characteristics due to differences in regional industrial structure."

According to the American Today, the chain reaction caused by agricultural difficulties could affect the entire economic system as farmers cut spending. Donna says he has suspended the purchase of new equipment for the past two years, even though the old machinery has seriously affected harvest efficiency.

The New York Times said that if no agreement could be reached, U.S. soybean growers would be forced to store harvested soybeans and avoid losses for sale. North Dakota¡¯s Arthur Company is building more temporary warehouses to accommodate up to 7 million purple oats of soybeans. Many U.S. farmers say the grain warehouses are no longer sufficient. Illinois corn and soybeans growers Frieders said, ¡°Storage problems like a wave generally hit Illinois.¡±

¡°The fastest way to help farmers is to end the trade war with China.¡±

Several trade groups in the United States called on the Trump administration to lend a helping hand to farmers. In August this year, the American Soybean Association asked Trump to make soybeans a priority in trade negotiations. "Every day that an agreement cannot be reached, the share of American farmers in the Chinese market will be further eroded," ragland said. "We urge the government to reach an agreement that can reopen the key market of American soybeans."

Federal Senators Glasley and Iowa¡¯s Minister of Agriculture Nagel have also repeatedly said that they are urging the Trump administration to reach a trade deal with China as soon as possible to fight for the world¡¯s largest soybean buyer to return to the U.S. market.

USA Today said that the U.S. government is also trying to reach agreements with other countries to urge them to expand the scale of U.S. agricultural imports. However, Ortega, a professor of food economics at Michigan State University, believes that it is not easy to open up new export markets. It is not clear whether the procurement scale of these countries can match the Chinese market, especially in the context of judicial challenges faced by Trump's tariff policy.

¡°But for China, it¡¯s much easier to find new suppliers than for U.S. farmers to explore new export markets,¡± Ortega said.

The Trump administration has pledged to provide more than $60 billion in subsidies to farmers over the next decade, but the aid should wait until the autumn of 2026, and farmers like Donna are worried that ¡°the far water can¡¯t save near fire.¡±

According to the CNBC website, although Trump signed the agricultural aid plan, farmers warned that it was not enough. CNN said that Democrats in Congress believe that the fastest way to help farmers is to end the trade war with China. Klobuchar, the Democratic leader of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said: "Our farmers have spent generations building these export markets, but they were closed by arbitrarily imposed tariffs. We have learned from the trade war launched during Trump's first term, and these markets will not recover overnight."

Sherlock, chairman of the North Dakota Association of Soybean Growers, said that if trade easing is not quickly achieved, it could have long-term effects on the U.S. agricultural community, including land value decline.

He Weiwen believes that the U.S. government may adopt two strategies to help soybean farmers. First, internal subsidies, through price subsidies, reduce soybean export costs and improve competitiveness; The second is to put pressure on China to increase its purchase of American soybeans. However, neither of these methods is the right medicine. The crux of the problem is that the Trump administration imposed tariffs on Chinese products. The correct way to solve this problem is for the United States to cancel unilateral tariffs on China. The Chinese market is crucial to U.S. soybean exports, and other markets are difficult to replace in a short time. Moreover, whether it is feasible to seek other markets depends on market demand. If there is no demand in other markets, there will be no gap.