Tomorrow, Donald Trump is expected to announce a significant aid package for soy farmers hurt by his trade war with China, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
China is the world’s largest soybean importer and typically buys about half of the US crop—last year, that came to $12.6 billion dollars. This summer, China has purchased zero dollars worth of soybeans from the United States and has no future orders planned.
Farmers are struggling. And worse, last week, Bessent announced that Trump was giving $20 billion in economic aid to bail out the far-right government of Argentina, a main US competitor in the soybean market. The influx of cash from Trump allowed Argentina to remove its own export taxes on soybeans, so China is getting an even better deal from them.
Trump’s aid package to farmers is expected to be in the billions of dollars. But to some farmers, that misses the point. “The American farmer, especially myself included—we don’t want any payments. We want to work,” said Indiana soybean and corn farmer Brian Warpup to the Associated Press. “The worst thing we could ever want is a handout.”
In this video, I give a quick overview of the ongoing tension between the US, China, and Argentina, and explain how Trump is effectively pricing American farmers out of their own market.
Watch:
This post has been syndicated from Mother Jones, where it was published under this address.