The autumn wind has just begun, but the barns of farms in the Midwestern United States are already too full to close their doors. Farmers look at the mountains of soybeans and worry about how to survive the next busy farming season.
They had hoped that China would come up with a few big bills as before to resolve the hurry, but the bill was delayed to pay.
I thought the APEC summit could bring a turnaround, but the reality gave the Trump administration the first stick: soybeans are missing, high-carbon is also cut off, and the finances are more than 45 billion big hole.
The question is, is there not much time, will Trump be able to pull this back?
Soybean orders "clear": 30 years of unseen cold field, let Trump do not wait
This year’s soybean harvest is good, but it’s a “huge harvest disaster.” China hasn’t purchased U.S. soybeans since the end of last year, and hasn’t ordered new ones for more than a decade, a situation that has never happened in the past 30 years.
According to the data of the United States Department of Agriculture, farmers in Illinois, Iowa and other agricultural states have lost an average of more than 20% this year, and the storage cost alone is overwhelming. Prices have fallen by nearly 40% compared with before the trade war, and many farms have not made a profit for three years.
Agriculture interest groups such as the American Soybean Association can’t sit down, and have been pressuring the White House for months to call for the return of exports to China as soon as possible.
Their core appeal is clear: subsidies can't solve the fundamental problem, and the market is the only hope for farmers to survive. The White House is not without action. The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Agriculture announced early that they would send money to farmers through the "Market Assistance Program", but how, when and whether the money can be sent out are all hanging.
Trump himself has high expectations for the APEC summit.In an interview in late August, he also vowed that he would "promote positive negotiations with China" at the summit.
Treasury Minister Bessent also revealed on several occasions that the U.S. is willing to "restart the trade dialogue in a pragmatic attitude". but the summit has not yet opened, and the bad news came first: China has not included soybean procurement on the priority agenda.
To make matters worse, even sorghum, a traditional export product, has begun to fall.
The high-quality market is shut down, Argentina is "in the empty", allies change opponents
In the past ten years, China has been the largest buyer of American sorghum, with an average annual purchase volume once accounting for 90% of American exports. However, in the first nine months of this year, China's sorghum imports from the United States were almost zero, while Argentina suddenly emerged, exporting 1.22 million tons of sorghum to China, accounting for 99% of its total exports. This is no accident, but the result of a precise attack.
The Ministry of Agriculture of Argentina began adjusting export standards last year to optimize key indicators such as high levels of uranium, impurities, moisture content, in order to fully match the procurement requirements of Chinese feed companies.
In other words, they are aiming at "grabbing the American market". Chinese enterprises are also willing to accept it-the price is more advantageous and the quality is more stable, so why not?
For U.S. farmers, this is undoubtedly an acceleration of the frostbite, which is more dependent on the Chinese market than soybeans, and once this sales channel is lost, it means that the entire growing chain will face reconstruction.
For Trump, this is not only a blow to the agricultural level, but also a symbolic signal: even the "hardest" South American allies in the past are now relentless in the trade competition, and are even willing to bypass the United States and directly connect with China.
What's even more intriguing is that behind this "sorghum battle", the United States is not unaware, but it is powerless. The Ministry of Agriculture tried to coordinate the "export order" through diplomatic channels, but the Argentine side declined.
In the international market, whoever can provide a stable supply of goods can dominate pricing. This time, it is the turn of the United States to suffer.
The fiscal hole is getting bigger and bigger, the subsidy plan is stuck, and the road to expanding the market is blocked
Soybeans cannot be produced and sorghum has been taken away. American agriculture is facing its most severe test in 30 years. Agricultural economists from North Dakota State University estimate that the total planting losses of the nine major staple crops in the United States this year will exceed US$45 billion.
This number does not include indirect losses, such as transportation, storage, machine depreciation and so on.
The White House originally intended to pay farmers with "tariff income" and plans to subsidize farmers to ease short-term financing difficulties.
But the problem is that the subsidy itself depends on Congress’ approval of the budget, with the U.S. government’s fiscal tightening, fiscal deficits surpassing expectations for three consecutive quarters, coupled with ongoing congressional disputes around agricultural spending, causing subsidy plans to delay.
Some farmers even say they haven’t received the money they promised last year.
What is even more troublesome is that the United States 'efforts to "expand the market outside" have not seen any improvement. Although countries such as India, Bangladesh, and Egypt have certain needs, their acceptance of American agricultural products is far less than that of China, and the procurement scale is too small to fill the gap in inventory.
The U.S. exports up to 30 million tons of soybeans annually to China, which is equivalent to a decade that these countries can’t buy together.In the end, the “irreplaceability” of the Chinese market is a nude reality.
China’s attitude has long been clear.
At present, the key to whether China and the United States can restore normal trade is that the United States cancelled the unfair tariff policy against China.Without this premise, there is no talk about cooperation.In these conditions, the APEC summit even if there is a dialogue, it is difficult to really break up.
Winter is coming and the fruit must swallow itself.
Soybeans cannot be sold, sorghum orders have been snatched, and a fiscal hole of 45 billion yuan has been created. These three dilemmas are on Trump's table, and none of them can be solved in the short term.
More importantly, these problems are not caused by natural disasters or market fluctuations, but by the direct consequences of his own policies.
Trump, who once claimed to be a "master negotiator", moved too quickly in the trade war, and as a result, pushed the agricultural states that are most dependent on exports into a quagmire.
Now he wants to rely on the summit to save the situation, want to rely on subsidies to stabilize the people's heart, but these methods are nothing more than "delaying tactics", and can not solve the problem of orders.
The facts are already clear: stable and predictable trade relations are the security farmers need most. Without orders, subsidies are just a drop in the bucket; without a market, no matter how high the output is, it will only rot in the warehouse.
This trade game, which began with higher taxes, ended up making American farmers the biggest losers.
APEC may be Trump’s last window of opportunity, but the window will be closed.If the White House still refuses to look at the root of the problem and refuses to give up the old mindset of “promote talks,” this winter, for American farmers, may be cooler than ever.