12/17/2018

AGRICULTURE/CHINA/TARIFFS/TRADE WAR/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump said Monday [12-17-18] that he would release a second round of payments to farmers hurt by tariffs, even after China resumed buying US soybeans last week…Soybean growers have been hit especially hard. China, their biggest foreign market, stopped buying US soybeans in July in retaliation for new American tariffs. But China placed a massive new order last week, as part of a temporary trade truce between the two countries. Still, it won’t make up for the business that soybean farmers lost this year due to the trade war. The Farm Bureau has estimated that exports to China are down 97% and prices reached historic lows this summer. Many farmers had to put their soybeans in storage after harvesting them this fall…The aid package came after multiple countries slapped tariffs on American commodities in retaliation for the Trump administration’s move to impose tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, as well as on a variety of imports from China. When the first tariffs went into effect in the spring, Trump himself promised to ‘make it up’ to farmers, calling them ‘patriots’ and saying the policies would be better for them in the long run.”

Katie Lobosco, “China is buying soybeans again, but Trump is still paying farmers hurt by tariffs,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, December 17, 2018 7:33 pm