09-04-2025
Iowa farmers continue to worry amid trade war
SIOUX CITY, Iowa (KCAU) – China has threatened to raise existing tariffs on U.S. goods by 50%, which could increase U.S tariffs on China to 104%. This new development has many farmers worried going into the planting season.
Last year, U.S. agricultural exports totaled $175 billion, with China being one of the largest trading partners for goods. That relationship is currently in limbo.
'I think the sense was that, you know, this was a negotiating tactic,' said Matt Russell, the former State Executive Director of the USDA Iowa Farm Service Agency during the Biden Administration. 'At this point, we are in a full-blown trade war, and as a farmer, I'm sitting here trying to figure out how is this going to impact me.'
Farmers say these tariffs will cause problems with partners in other countries.
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'We have undermined those, and so if I'm a buyer of American products, American farm products, this is a big signal I need to make sure that I'm looking for other partners,' Russell said.
'Going back to 2017, we were exporting about 2.3 billion bushels of soybeans and roughly 50% of the soybean crop is exported,' said Joshua Manske, a farmer in Iowa and Minnesota. 'So now currently, we're exporting, I think USDA is estimating 1.8 billion bushels of soybeans being exported compared to 2.3 [billion] back before the trade war.'
On top of countries seeking other producers, the cost of soybeans is not looking good.
'When you look at the futures and you look at where those prices may be locally this fall, for soybeans, you're seeing kind of a similar low $9 range,' Russell said. 'There are just very few farmers who can even cash flow without losing money at those prices.'
'Yeah, even before this whole thing took place, soybeans did not look very profitable, if profitable at all,' Manske said. 'Now, if you're looking at the new crop contract, corn's had good demand so that makes sense. But I think you also see a reduced soybean number because people are just not excited about growing a crop that you're not really going to make money on.'
Russell says he's all for fair trade, but that the Trump Administration is not wielding tariffs correctly.
'What we've got is like you're walking into your shop and instead of grabbing the specific tool that you need, you're grabbing the biggest hammer and you're just swinging it at all your equipment and everything,' Russell said.
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'We obviously want fair trade, right? If there's any sort of issues, which are why these agreements are done in the first place, so if there is problems, it's like 'hey, you're manipulating your currency' or 'hey, you're dumping steel' or dumping rubber,' Manske said. 'You almost need some sort of a scalpel to deal with this kind of an issue instead of coming at it with a sledge hammer.'
However, farmers aren't the only people that will be impacted by the tariffs put on China.
'You know, this is not just going to hurt farmers' pockets, right? This is reverberating through the rural economy,' Manske said. 'Look at John Deere and Kinze, for example. Those are jobs that are being shed based on the farm economy. So I think it's important, and then, of course, what's going to happen to our rural communities as well?'
The 104% tariffs could go into effect as early as Wednesday night at 12:01 a.m. Trump's cabinet members say there will be no exceptions to the tariffs.
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