Toro
Diamond Member
- Thread starter
- #201
More evidence that Trump's Trade Taxes are hurting farmers.
Disquiet among farmers grew in June as crop prices fell thanks to benevolent U.S. weather and additional duties expected from China on products like soybeans, for which it is the U.S.’s top customer. The total value of this year’s U.S. corn, soybean and wheat crops dropped about $13 billion, or 10%, in June, said Chris Hurt, an agricultural economist at Purdue University. On Monday, U.S. soybean prices continued their downward spiral, heading toward the lowest level in a decade.
The planned tariffs on U.S. soybean exports come as farmers nationwide have boosted plantings of the crop, betting on the oilseeds to deliver stronger returns than corn during a yearslong slump in the farm economy.
For farmers like Mr. Smith, who grows corn and soybeans on 1,500 acres in Cotton Plant, Ark., the 16% decline in soybean prices alone translates into a nearly $100 per-acre drop in the value of his crop. “That’s $100,000 that has disappeared into thin air,” he said. “We were already in the red, and now it’s even worse.”
Researchers at the University of Illinois and Ohio State University estimate that over four years, a 25% tariff on U.S. soybean imports by Beijing would result in an average 87% decline in income for a midsize Illinois grain farm. The loss would pressure farmland prices, they say, prompting a more than $500,000 decline in the farm’s net worth by 2021.
Trade Fight Threatens Farm Belt Businesses
As soybeans hit a 10-year low.
Soybean prices fell to the lowest point in almost a decade on Monday, as looming Chinese tariffs threatened to kill off demand from the U.S.’s largest customer.
Futures for July fell 1.2% to $8.48 1/2 a bushel at the Chicago Board of Trade, the lowest close since March 2009.
The market tumbled 15% in June as soybeans, which became a crucial cash crop for beleaguered American farmers in recent years, got caught up in a trade dispute between China and the U.S.
Beijing said it plans to introduce tariffs on U.S. soybean imports starting Friday, part of a package of measures retaliating against the Trump administration’s own threatened duties against hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese goods. Soybean buyers in China—the world’s largest consumer of oilseed, which gobbles up around a third of all the U.S.-grown crop—have sharply slowed their purchases in anticipation of the duties.
Soybeans Tumble Near 10-Year Low
They think that having a 300 billion dollar a year surplus is a good thing for them.
THey are fighting to keep it.
They are benefiting from selling more to US then they buy. It gets them vast wealth with which to build their country.
They get that vast wealth from US. At our expense.
Your "trade surplus" argument is false because it misunderstands basic economics.
There is absolutely no correlation whatsoever to the rate of growth and trade balances.
But there is a ton of evidence that countries that are more open to trade grow faster.
That's because countries often try left-wing mercantilist anti-trade policies, making the same arguments you and Donald Trump make. Then, after a couple of decades of leftist economic failures, they change to free-market capitalism.
Most countries have had a trade surplus with the United States over the past 50 years. Yet most countries have not grown as fast as the US during that time.