'Anxiousness and frustration' hits red state as Trump serves 'bitter pill': rural leader

Iowa Soybean Association President Tom Adam urged the Trump administration, in a statement Thursday, to prioritize a trade deal with China and to support soybean farmers who are without their biggest market.

China typically buys 60% of global soybean exports, and the U.S. used to be China’s preferred supplier until it turned to Brazil during the trade wars of the first Trump administration.

Now, China appears to have turned to Argentina for its soybeans, and U.S. farmers worry they’ll be stuck with a bountiful harvest and nowhere to sell it.

China placed an order with Argentina shortly after the U.S. agreed to a $20 billion bailout deal with the South American country. According to the American Soybean Association, China typically purchases soybeans from the U.S. before harvest begins. A couple weeks into the harvest season in Iowa, and China has not placed an order, presumably in protest of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods.

“Agriculture thrives when America leads on trade,” Adam said in the statement. “We can’t afford to let uncertainty and political maneuvering erode the markets farmers have spent decades cultivating.”

Adam said the mood in rural Iowa is one of “anxiousness and frustration” because of “trade policy that’s severely straining relationships” with key trade partners.

Adam, who also farms near Harper, said President Donald Trump’s current trade policies are a “bitter pill” for farmers, despite the fact that many farmers voted to elect Trump.

“With strong yields and a nearly ideal harvest season underway across Iowa and large sections of rural America, grain bins will soon be filled with quality U.S. soy that needs to find a home,” Adam wrote.

An Iowa State University report from July estimated that reciprocal tariffs – where the country places the same tariff amount on U.S. goods as the U.S. has placed on their goods — could cause losses between $191 million and $1.49 billion to the Iowa soybean industry.

While soybeans stand to lose the most, according to the report, the corn, ethanol and hog industries in Iowa were also projected to lose hundreds of millions because of the reciprocal tariffs.

ISA urged the administration to broker a trade agreement with China that “immediately expedites soybean purchases.”

President Trump has expressed plans to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at a trade summit at the end of October, but Adam said every day without a Chinese trade deal “closes the window tighter” on the “critical” sales period for soybeans between October through February.

The release from Iowa Soybean Association said this year, Iowa farmers are set to harvest about 550 million bushels of soybeans across 9.3 million acres.

With no soybean sales to China currently on the books, farmers are worried they’ll have to find a place to store their crops, or find a different market.

Adam also urged Congress to “provide immediate trade mitigation funding” to farmers to tide them over until a deal can be reached.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said Tuesday that farmers would rather have a market to sell into than rely on a government payout. He also said the administration might find a solution using tariff money instead of congressionally allocated funds.

Adam said a federal farm payment was “not ideal” but that it would “enable many farmers to survive another year.”

Finally, the Iowa Soybean Association president asked the administration to finalize Renewable Volume Obligations – something EPA proposed earlier this year – to boost the biofuels industry. A boost in this industry would give farmers another soybean market to sell into.

“The crop is here,” Adam said. “The quality is proven. The demand exists. What’s missing is the resolve to reconnect America’s farmers with a world of buyers who want to purchase our soybeans.”