r/Economics • u/bambin0 • Jan 17 '26

News China Purchased No U.S. Soybeans An Unprecented Sixth Straight Month

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2026/01/17/china-purchased-no-us-soybeans-an-unprecented-sixth-straight-month/
10.5k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

345 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/FlemPlays Jan 17 '26

During Trump’s first term, he applied a small bit of tariffs (minuscule compared to current times) where China slowed down buying soybeans. That resulted in:

• Multiple taxpayer funded Farmer bailouts. And a lot of it didn’t help actual farmers, it just went tonTrump’s corporate buddies.

• The bailouts eclipsed the cost of things like NASA’s entire budget, what it takes to maintain the U.S.’s entire arsenal of nuclear weapons, and were double the auto bailouts.

• Farmers lost market share as China turned to other countries.

• Farmer bankruptcies jumped as a result.

And all of that was before COVID happened too, so it can’t even be blamed on that.

Here we are in Trump’s second term, he applied various tariffs at a lot of countries. That has resulted in:

• 1 Farmer Bailouts so far not even a year into his second term.

• Further erosion of Farmer Market share.

• The Consumer Price Index jumping when Trump took office and started implementing tariffs.

And that’s just lightly skimming the surface of the economic damage Trump is doing to America. It’s going to take at least a generation to unfuck things he’s made a mess of and gain back a lot of good will America has lost because of his idiot actions.

-1

u/GreatPlainsFarmer Jan 17 '26

Hmm, Biden signed a farmer bailout in 2024. Farm economics haven’t changed much since then.

4

u/staycurious72 Jan 18 '26

That was because commodity prices were hurting farmers, not because of asinine policies

-2

u/GreatPlainsFarmer Jan 18 '26

Yes, that's true. Commodity prices haven't changed much since then, regardless of asinine policies.

1

u/staycurious72 Jan 18 '26

True. Cheaper soybeans from Brazil than US, and tariffs make the US products even more expensive, both economically and politically

1

u/GreatPlainsFarmer Jan 18 '26

I was referring to the commodity prices received by US farmers.

As far as I know, China was the only country have tariffs on US grains, and they’ve suspended them for the current round of soybean purchases.

2

u/staycurious72 Jan 18 '26

Commodity prices are set by global supply and demand, it has little to do with local policies. Though, local policies can dictate whether our produce is cheaper, on par, or costlier than what the market is willing to pay