The Unexpected Side Effects of Trump’s Trade War

Farm income is down, and equipment prices are sky-high.  Like farmers around the country, Boyd is in the crosshairs of the trade war, caught between the 25 percent tariffs that the United States has imposed on imported raw materials such as steel and aluminum and the retaliatory tariffs that China and other countries have imposed on major American agricultural exports, especially soybeans. The trade war almost couldn’t have come at a worse time for the agricultural industry: Farm debt is on the rise, farm income is in a three-year trough, and the American Farm Bureau Federation’s chief economist said last month that many farmers are dependent on off-farm income to keep their operations running. But farmers can’t push pause on their crops to try to wait out the trade war—they’re at the beck and call of the planting and harvesting seasons.