U.S. tariff measures, combined with China’s halted soybean purchases, are hitting Missouri farmers where it hurts, threatening billions of dollars in export revenue and shaking Missouri’s agricultural backbone.
Since April 2, the day President Donald Trump dubbed “Liberation Day” and imposed sweeping tariffs on America’s trade partners, businesses have been scrambling to adapt. Missouri is no different, with its agriculture sector being heavily strained.
Soybeans are Missouri’s most valuable agricultural product. The state produced nearly $2.9 billion worth of the crop last year, which ranked sixth nationally.But amidst tariffs and a trade dispute with China, which previously was the biggest importer of U.S. soybeans, American farmers are seeing a steep drop in exports.
Bryant Kagay owns Kagay Farms in Maysville, where he primarily grows corn, soybeans and wheat. Kagay said he has experienced a “significant” drop in soybean prices.
“Over the past several months, there’s been a pretty good decline through the growing season for the expected cash price of soybeans,” Kagay said.
At the center of this struggle is the tense trade relationship between the U.S. and China. In 2024, U.S. farmers sold more than $12.6 billion worth of soybeans to China, making up more than half of all American soybean exports, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
China was one of the first major targets of tariffs after Trump began his second term. Following a series of trade escalations earlier in the year, U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods reached as high as 125% in April. However, a temporary agreement reached in May significantly rolled back many of those increases.
Currently, the baseline import tax on Chinese products stands at 10%, though certain products still face additional duties above that level.
In response, Beijing not only has utilized reciprocal tariffs, but also has stopped purchasing U.S soybeans, which has been detrimental to American farmers.
“Trade wars are harmful to everyone, and these latest developments are deeply disappointing at a moment when soybean farmers are facing an ever-growing financial crisis.” Caleb Ragland, president of the American Soybean Association, said in a statement issued Oct. 10.
While global demand for U.S soybeans shrinks and prices decline, many producers are struggling to cover their costs. Currently, soybean prices are hovering around $10 per bushel, well below their $13 per bushel level in December 2023, according to the USDA.
“The fact that China is not buying soybeans now has been a very big negative for the market, causing prices to be lower and their producer returns to be far less than they would have been otherwise,” said Pat Westhoff, director of the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the University of Missouri.
In addition to torpedoing demand for U.S. soybeans, the Trump administration’s trade measures have posed challenges for farmers and business owners because of their unpredictable nature.
Tariff policies have changed rapidly, and court cases against some tariffs are still pending, leaving many Missouri farmers left without a clear roadmap.
“Farmers are trying to decide which crop to plant next spring, which investments to make. It’s really hard to know for sure what to do,” Westhoff said. “Producers have to make choices about what they’re going to do in 2026 and beyond. … That’s hard to do when the environment is as uncertain as it is today.”
Many Missouri farmers may face difficult choices about how to stay profitable amid the shifting trade landscape. With global demand becoming less predictable and more scarce, farmers and policymakers are being forced to start considering ways to strengthen the domestic soybean market.
One promising area of growth lies in the expanding biofuel industry, which experts say has the potential to create more stable domestic demand for agricultural commodities.
“If there were more demand for biofuels, that would result in increased demand for corn to make ethanol, and increased demand for soybean oil to make biodiesel,” Westhoff said. “So if we were to have policy changes that encourage the use of those biofuels, that could be a positive to demand for agricultural products and support prices in the face of lost markets overseas.”
Despite the potential to develop a bigger domestic market in the future, farmers are struggling right now. To ease the burden, the federal government has discussed deploying trade relief packages, including payments under programs like the Market Facilitation Program, which was used when Trump imposed tariffs on China in his first term.
“There’s talk these days of a possible aid package that might provide some benefits to producers of soybeans and other crops and other livestock products,” Westhoff said. “If there’s not any additional assistance provided and we continue to have the sorts of disruptions we’ve had, I’d expect fewer people to plant soybeans in 2026.”
Still, while federal aid packages may offer a temporary lifeline, many farmers say they aren’t a long-term fix.
“I think they just ultimately cause inflation,” Kagay said. “What’s going to happen ultimately, the seed, chemical, fertilizer equipment dealers are going to get that money, and it just kind of kicks the can down the road.”
This story originally appeared in Missouri Business Alert, a digital newsroom covering business and the economy in Missouri.