'Destruction is mutually assured': WSJ slams Trump's 'game' against American farmers

The Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial board slammed President Donald Trump's trade war with China in a new op-ed on Monday, arguing that it amounts to a "game" the president is playing against American farmers.

"Whoever claimed trade wars are easy to win clearly wasn’t an American farmer," the editorial reads in part. "Witness the enormous collateral damage America’s soybean producers are suffering amid President Trump’s trade war with China."

Trump imposed several tariffs on goods imported from China, Mexico, and Canada earlier this year. The countries are some of America's largest customers for soybeans, a popular and profitable crop for American farmers.

China retaliated by placing a 20% tariff on American soybeans, a move that the Journal editors noted led China to start buying from other countries such as Argentina and Brazil, to the detriment of U.S. farmers.

"But the plight of America’s farmers is a reminder that the destruction of a trade war is mutually assured, and not inflicted solely by one side on the other as Mr. Trump’s trade warriors so often claim," the editors argued. "Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said America holds all the cards in Mr. Trump’s tariff game because the rest of the world needs to sell us stuff. Tell that to America’s farmers."

Read the entire editorial by clicking here.