Economy

Eugene

(61,872 posts) Sat Oct 13, 2018, 08:21 PM Oct 2018

North Dakota soybean farmers, caught in the trade war, watch the season run out on their crop

Source: Washington Post

North Dakota soybean farmers, caught in the trade war, watch the season run out on their crop

By Kyle Swenson October 13 at 9:00 AM

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But there is another problem facing farmers in the Sheyenne River Valley, 60 miles west of Fargo: They are snagged in the trade crossfire between Washington and Beijing.

For the past decade, North American soybean production has exploded, driven by an intense demand from China. Peterson and other Great Plains farmers directly fed the overseas markets, harvesting more than 243 million bushels in North Dakota, at a price of $2.1 billion in the last market year. The majority of that crop fattened Chinese livestock.

But in July, the Trump administration announced 10 percent tariffs on more than $200 billion of imported Chinese goods. Beijing responded with tariffs on $60 billion of American products — including soybeans.

The escalation essentially hit pause on what had been a rollicking international market for North Dakota’s farmers. When Peterson pulls his soybeans from the ground, he’ll have no one to sell most of them to.

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