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The writer is A contributing columnist, based in Chicago
Steve Pitstick has been cultivating in the west of the United States for 51 years, approximately one hour outside Chicago, the city that built the grain. Seven generations of his family have earned the lives of the land.
Now the farms such as his in Illinois, the largest export state of soybeans in the United States, are at the extreme of China’s American commercial war of President Donald Trump. Illinois paid a great price for Trump’s last commercial war with China in 2018. At that time, the United States lost $ 27 billion in agricultural exports only in 2018-19, with losses concentrated in the west. Illinois only lost $ 1.41 billion annualized.
I updated with Pitstick as he hastened to reach the soy and corn crops this year on the floor on his son’s farm near Elburn, Illinois. Speaking fast to be able to return to the seed boxes around the farm with an elevator truck, the 66 -year -old tells me that he is not worried about the recent dramatic deterioration in commercial relations with China, the main export destination for American soybeans. And it is not the market either, he says. “Until now he [soyabean futures] The market has shown that it doesn’t care. . . It has actually been recovered since the rates began, “he tells me.” Everything will work at the end. ”
Farmers are often optimistic, but this is more than a mere optimism. “I firmly believe that we are on the right path [with tariffs]”, Pitstick tells me, pointing out the nearby railways that says they carry” container after garbage container “that US consumers buy, mainly from China.” We need to send some of this country to balance that trade, right? “That, he says, is what Trump is trying to do.
But do not blame the last commercial war for drastically promoting soy exports from Brazil to China, at the expense of farm like yours? Pitstick points out, rightly, that the rise of Brazil as an agricultural exporter began long before Trump was chosen; He thinks he will continue with or without tariffs. “We are in an unknown territory, but we are always in an unknown territory,” he says, recalling that American agriculture has survived worse, pointing out the American grain embargo from President Jimmy Carter against the Soviet Union.
Many Illinois farmers that I interviewed last week, not to mention the futures market, they seem to think that there will be a commercial agreement with China before the harvest that they are planting now is collected. But some are less optimistic than Pitstick. “The last time the tariffs hit each third row of soy [in the US] I went to China, and today is only one in four, “Bill Wykes, former president of the Soybean de Illinois Association, tells me.” It is scary. “
Ron Kindred, the current president, echoes his concerns: “We understand what the president is trying to achieve, but is this the best way to do it? He is trying to level the playing field for us and that would be something good, but we cannot bear much pain at this time because the price of our products has decreased substantially in the last two years.
“We have $ 10 of soybeans at this time … But will we have $ 7 soy next year? That is not something we can live with,” he tells me. Agricultural economists hope that Illinois corn and soy farmers lose money this year.
It is true that the Trump administration has promised help for American farmers trapped in the commercial war, after spending largely to rescue them last time. But Kindred says that most farmers, who vote strongly Republicans, do not feel comfortable with government brochures and prefer to work for what they earn. Worse, the commercial war is destroying the reputation of the United States as a reliable commercial partner, he tells me.
China’s current tariffs make American soybeans not competitive: the United States SOO association estimates tariffs, tariffs and value added taxes in China now total almost 150 percent, “” so if you send a bean bust to China that cost $ 10 here, it will cost $ 25 more shipping costs. ”
If that persists, will Trump’s substantial support among farmers harm? Pitstick says it will not turn against the president soon. And a recent CBS News survey showed that 91 percent of Republicans are still convinced that they have a clear plan about trade.
“If China does not buy our things, someone else will,” says Illinois John Andermann farmer. For now, state farmers are still focused on obtaining seeds on the ground. In Trump’s America, anything could happen before harvest.
