‘Damaging’: 'Frustration grows' in red states as farmers brace for 'hard hit' from Trump

The international trade war unleashed by Donald Trump’s massive set of tariffs on China is starting to present a growing dilemma for U.S. soybean farmers – and it could come at a political cost to the president.

That’s according to a new report in the Atlantic, which detailed Wednesday how Trump’s tariffs not only have the ability to weaken soybean production in the U.S., but also could “turbocharge deforestation in the Amazon” in the process.

“Now global-trade tensions threaten to further accelerate the ecological destruction,” Atlantic climate journalist Sarah Sax told readers. “President Donald Trump’s 145 percent tariff on imports from China and China’s 125 percent reciprocal tariffs on U.S. goods could reroute a significant share of China’s demand for American commodities.”

If the tariffs on soybeans stick, China is likely to purchase more of the product from Brazil, which experts fear could lead to further deforestation, according to The Atlantic. It could also bring blowback from soybean farmers in states that voted overwhelmingly for the MAGA leader.

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“Growing frustration from American soybean farmers and industry associations, who operate primarily in red states, could prove to be politically damaging, especially given that soybean farmers were hard-hit by tariffs in Trump’s first term, and many are still recovering,” according to The Atlantic. “But if the tariffs stick, their most lasting effects for Brazil—taxed at only 10 percent even under the original plan—will likely be not geopolitical, but environmental.”

But behind the political ramifications at home that the tariffs could have on Trump, Sax wrote that a surge in soy exports from Brazil “could undermine the very climate goals that world leaders will gather to discuss” as the country gears up to host a global climate conference later this year.

That, she concluded, “would be a dilemma for Brazil—and for the world.”