The humble soybeans is the last point of view in the Trump administration campaign to remodel global trade.
Used in everything, from animal food to fuel, soybeans are regularly located among the most valuable American agricultural exports, which rises over crops of greater profile such as corn and cotton.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, more than $ 30 billion in American soybeans in fiscal year 2024, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.
For American soy farmers, their best market abroad has been for a long time China, which bought around a third of the export harvest, approximately $ 12 billion in American soybeans products, in the last calendar year, according to the USDA data.
But not anymore.
While President Donald Trump’s commercial war leaves relations between the United States and China somewhere between Frosty and openly hostile, the soy farmers of the United States seem to be an early victim.
An embargo in all but the name
Until now, China has not bought any US soybeans during the main harvest period this year, and zero sales in May.
This has led many American farmers who depend on soybeans almost to the point of rupture.
It has also complicated Trump administration plans to provide billions in foreign financial aid to Argentina.
Buenos Aires recently sold more than 2.5 million metric tons of soybeans to Beijing, after briefly suspending its export tax in soy products.
American officials blame China for the imminent crisis facing American soy producers.
“It is unfortunate that Chinese leadership has decided to use American farmers, soy farmers in particular, as a hostage or pawns in commercial negotiations,” Treasury secretary, Scott Besent, on Thursday in CNBC on Thursday.
However, farmers see the situation differently. They want Trump to reach a commercial agreement with China that ends the unofficial embargo of soybeans. But instead, what they see is that the White House prepares to rescue one of its main rivals for the Chinese export market.
“The frustration is overwhelming,” said the president of the American Soja Association, Caleb Ragland, in a recent statement.
Meanwhile, China, the world’s largest soy buyer, said American purchases will not resume unless they are more Trump rates.
“As for soybean trade, the American side must take proactive measures to eliminate relevant uniform rates, create conditions to expand bilateral trade and inject more stability and certainty in global economic development,” said spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, He Yadong to journalists in Beijing.
Emergency relief is approaching
The Trump administration will announce a new support for farmers, “especially soy farmers,” Besent said Tuesday.
“We are also going to work with the agricultural credit office to ensure that farmers have what they need for the next planting season,” he added.
Besent personally has up to $ 25 million in cultivation lands in North Dakota that produces corn and soybeans, according to its recent financial revelations.
He said soybeans would be a topic of discussion at the next meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, regardless of the Asia and Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum at the end of this month.
Trump is also aware of the impact that his commercial policies are having on American farmers, starting with soy producers.
“The soy farmers of our country are being injured because China is, for reasons of ‘negotiation’ only, not buying,” the president published Wednesday in Truth Social.
“We have earned so much money in rates, that we are going to take a small portion of that money and help our farmers,” Trump added.
The question is whether this help will arrive soon enough to save this year’s massive harvest.
In the center of the Fire Storm is the Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, who warned this week that “this moment of uncertainty in the agricultural economy is real.” Speaking in Fox Business Network, he emphasized that Trump has long supported American farmers.
“President Trump and Secretary Rollins are always in contact with the needs of our farmers, who played a crucial role in the president’s victory in November,” said the White House in a statement on Thursday. “It has made clear its intention to use tariff income to help our agricultural sector, but no final decisions have been made about the contours of this plan.”
The Argentine factor
The current stagnation of the United States-China on soy exports is also complicating another American foreign policy enigma: what to do with Argentina’s hesitant economy.
While the United States exports to China Screech to stop, Argentina’s farmers took the opportunity to sell their own soy to China.
From his perspective, a possible economic aid package from the United States has nothing to do with its soy exports, and everything that has to do with the personal and political alliance between Trump and the libertarian president Javier Milei.
Milei was the first foreign leader to visit Trump after his 2024 electoral victory, and has become a family face in the US political events attended by the president’s supporters.
In a Constitution of Conservative Political Action outside Washington, DC, in February, Milei gave the Department of Efficiency of the Government Elon Musk a red chainsaw.
Musk then stirred him on stage, calling him “the chainsaw for bureaucracy.”
Eight months later, Milei’s popularity with voters has sunk, raising doubts about the future of its friendly economic reforms for the market and the strict austerity measures.
The local elections in early September hit the Milei party, triggering a massive agitation in the markets and currency markets of Argentina.
A few weeks after market drop, Besent announced on social networks that the United States was prepared to deploy billions of dollars to support the South American country.
A presidential delegation of Buenos Aires is expected to visit the White House next week to finish the United States foreign aid agreement.
This has enraged soy farmers.
“The soy prices of the United States are falling, the harvest is underway and the farmers read the holders not on ensuring a commercial agreement with China, but the United States government is extending $ 20 billion in financial support to Argentina, while that country leaves its taxes on the export of soybeans to sell 20 Argentine soybeans charges in China in just two days,” Ragland said.
Meanwhile, Milei has also secured a currency exchange line for Argentina from China, a situation that pauses some in Washington.
In response, Milei has said that Argentina will maintain its mutually beneficial commercial and economic relationship with China.
The tensions within the Trump administration about China, Argentina and the farmers of the soybeans broke into the open last week.
While attending the UN General Assembly, Besent received a text message from a “BR” contact.
“Yesterday we rescued Argentina … I change, the Argentine eliminated his export tariff on the grains, reducing his price, and sold a lot of soy to China at a time when we would normally be selling to China,” said the message, is presumed widely to come from Rollins.
“Soja prices are decreasing for that. This gives China more influence on us,” the message concluded.
Besent and Rollins spokesmen did not answer questions about the exchange of text messages.
