American farmers are the biggest losers in Trump’s unnecessary trade war

In the Trump administration’s trade war with China, American farmers are fast becoming the biggest losers. Farmers are enduring the worst cycle they’ve seen since the 1980s farm crisis: a multiyear slump in farm prices that has slashed net farm income by more than 50 percent since 2013. Increasingly, farmers are pinched by prices that are far below their cost of production, as well as rising input costs, growing debt, tightening credit conditions and much more. Every day on our 1-800 Farm Aid hotline, we hear from farmers struggling to make ends meet. They can't pay their electric bills. They can't feed their animals. They grow our food and yet they struggle to feed their own families. As more and more farmers inch toward the brink of foreclosure, these self-inflicted trade wars with the European Union, Canada, China, and other major trade partners will only hasten the process.In such precarious times, holding American farmers hostage as a bargaining chip in a trade war, and telling them to wait for some yet-to-be-revealed plan, as Agriculture Secretary Perdue has done, is offensive and dangerous.