The U.S. exports billions of dollars worth of agricultural products each year — things like soybeans, corn and pork. And over the last month, these exports have been caught up in a trade war and subject to enormous retaliatory tariffs.
U.S. farmers have been collateral damage in a trade war before. In 2018, President Trump put tariffs on a bunch of Chinese products including flatscreen TVs, medical devices and batteries. The idea was that the tariffs would make these Chinese products more expensive so people in the U.S. would buy fewer of them and maybe buy more American goods instead.
But China matched those tariffs with retaliatory tariffs of their own. They put tariffs on a lot of U.S. agricultural products they'd been buying, like soybeans, sorghum, and livestock. That choice looked strategic. Hitting these products with tariffs hurt Trump's voter base and might help China in a negotiation. And in some cases, China could find affordable alternative options from other countries.
Today on the show, what happened in 2018, how the government stepped in to prevent U.S. farms from going bankrupt, and what was lost even after the trade war ended.
This episode was produced by Sylvie Douglis and edited by Jess Jiang. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.
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Music: NPR Source Audio - "Down the Rabbit Hole," "Make Mine a Double," and "Sorority."Copyright 2025 NPR
