On October 15, local time, a 90-foot-high old farmhouse in the town of Martin, Illinois, collapsed.In 1972, the old guy, who carried so many years, did not stand up, 816 tons of soybeans and waterfalls drowned out, the dust flew higher than the roof, and the surrounding farmers were scared and drowned, and the scene was asphyxiated.

But guess what? Compared with the collapse of the granary, the local soybean farmers collapsed more than the collapse of the granary-the China market across the Pacific has completely said goodbye to them. This is not the granary collapse, it is clearly their "money bag" collapse! The economic truth hidden in this melon is not as simple as a construction accident.

Brian Sivers, president of the Illinois Soybean Association, has been so worried that he spits out to everyone: Last year, China paid $12 billion to buy their soybeans, but this year he "shaved his head" directly without a penny list. You know, 40% of the soybeans in this place live by selling them to China. Now China doesn't even buy any. Doesn't this mean cutting off half of their lives?

The data showed that China had not imported soybeans from the U.S. in September, the first time such a ¡°zero import¡± had occurred since November 2018. and just on October 20, Trump shouted that he hoped China could buy soybeans, which meant wanting to renegotiate with China?

Some netizens may be curious, since they don't buy American soybean orders, where have all China's soybean orders gone? The answer is South America. More than 40 grain ships from Brazil and Argentina go to China every month. From January to August 2025, China only bought 5.8 million tons of soybeans from the United States, a year-on-year drop of nearly 80%; But how much did you buy from Brazil in the same period? 77 million tons, a fraction of which is more than the total in the United States.

Brazil's soybean exports this year reached a new high, of which 79.9% sold to China, in September alone to China sent 6.5 million tons of soybeans, accounting for the total exports of the month 93%.

Some analysts predict that if this situation continues, the United States may permanently lose 16 million tons of soybean export orders to China. Think about it, how dependent American soybean farmers are on the Chinese market? 40% of Illinois' soybeans are digested by China, which used to be the largest buyer nationwide. Now that this market is gone, it's simply a drastic effort.

What is even worse is that American soybean farmers have also encountered a "bumper harvest disaster" this year. A soybean farmer in Shangguan News said it bluntly: "The yield, harvest and weather are all good, but the market demand is terrifyingly low." I originally thought it would be a bumper harvest year to make some money, but as a result, soybeans were piled into mountains and could not be sold, and I couldn't even afford the storage fee. Isn't this just causing trouble for people?

That's not the worst part. They are living under double pressure. On the one hand, planting costs are rising like rockets, and the prices of chemical fertilizers and agricultural machinery are rising. Even labor has become scarce due to immigration policies, and there is almost no one to do the work in the fields.

On the other hand, after losing China, the largest buyer, soybean prices plunged directly, losing every pound of each pound sold, both inside and outside. This is not the first time that this has happened. Lagrand, President of the American Soybean Association, has been scared when he mentioned the 2018 trade war. The scars left at that time have not healed yet.

Historical data shows that from 2018 to 2019, the loss of U.S. agricultural exports exceeded US $27 billion, of which US $25.7 billion was directly related to China's counter-tariffs. The most terrible thing is that the market share that was taken away by Brazil in those days has not been taken back after seven years, and now it's just worse for this to happen again.

In order to survive, American bean farmers can only harden their heads to save themselves, but this self-saving path is even harder to go than to get through. A group of people ran to Vietnam, the Philippines, these Southeast Asian countries, bitterly persuaded local farmers to buy two kilograms of American soybeans, saying white is asking people to buy, the gesture is very low.

But these efforts will not fill the hole left by the China market. The European Union and Mexico are the second and third buyers of U.S. soybeans, but they only buy US$5 billion a year, which is less than half of China's purchases last year.

Moreover, according to a survey by the American Agricultural Bureau Federation, from June to September, U.S. soybean exports to China were "almost zero." China did not place any orders for new soybeans harvested next year, which is equivalent to completely blocking the road.

The most frightening of the bean farmers is the operation of the Trump government. They are worried about livelihoods in the fields, every day hoping the government can give some real help, and the result is that Trump is good, on social platforms to say ¡°hello,¡± to consider ¡°stop importing Chinese food oil¡± retaliation. This is the solution to the problem, clearly the oil is poured on the fire, the trade issue is more and more politized, the relationship between the US and China is tense, their business is more and more impossible to do.

Before that, Trump patted his chest and promised that the federal government would give an agricultural rescue plan of $10 billion to $14 billion, but this promise was no different from painting cakes. Now American farmers are almost forced to the "trade and fiscal cliff", but they are in urgent need of assistance, but they don't even see the shadow. More and more soybean farmers are seeing the reality clearly: what they want is a stable market, not this kind of temporary subsidy that is available when they think of it and gone when they can't think of it.

According to data from the University of Arkansas, between April 2024 and March 2025, 259 farms in the United States filed for bankruptcy, while by 2025, 88 family farms filed for bankruptcy alone, twice as many as 50 in the same period in 2024.

La Grande was particularly blunt in his open letter to Trump: If we continue to fight a trade war with China like this, American farmers may all close their doors before 2027. This is not really an alarmist comment. The current situation is already critical enough.

The farm has collapsed but can be rebuilt, the market trust can be lost, and it is more difficult to find back than to go to the sky. China has long begun to diversify imports, not the non-American soybeans are not necessary, South American countries are trying to expand the production capacity to seize the market, Brazil, Argentina's food ships one by one to China, the United States wants to seize back market share, and there are no doors.

More importantly, the problems of the United States itself, the trade policy is repeatedly unusual, and the White House always loves to politicize the trade issue, a bunch of arrogance. These things are added together, like the "invisible hand" that overthrew the farmhouse, now rolling the tariff bars, and knocking the bean farmers who first stood up with Trump.

Look at the irony of this contrast: soybean cargo ships from Argentina and Brazil sail to China with orders and make a lot of money; American soybean farmers can only squeeze unsold soybeans into cheap agricultural machinery fuel, watching helplessly as grains that can make a lot of money turn into worthless fuel, or they are piled in granaries, waiting for the next possible collapse.

The data will not lie, but someone will.This soybeans crisis is not a coincidence at all, it is the inevitable result of U.S. policy runaway.The collapse of a farmhouse looks like a small thing, but it is behind the shake of the U.S. agricultural system, the market's foot vote on U.S. policy.

Bean farmers who once pushed Trump to high positions have now become the bearers of the price of the trade war. Only they themselves knew best how painful this wave of "boomerang" hit. The end of an era often begins with such a seemingly accidental collapse, but the person who caused all this with his own hands is still pretending to be confused.