r/farming 1d ago

China Hits Back at Trump Tariffs with 34% Duties on All US Goods

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-04/china-imposes-34-tariffs-on-all-us-imports-as-retaliation
1.2k Upvotes

117 comments sorted by

129

u/asbestoswasframed 1d ago

Well, looks like we're going to find out exactly Brazil's soy growing capacity.

I feel for anyone in the Soy market this year - that price is going to absolutely crater.

It's also going to be tough for an administration obsessed with "government efficiency" to justify socializing the pain growers will feel through subsidies/handouts.

72

u/spacedropper 1d ago edited 1d ago

I just ran some quick numbers for my congressional district. In 2022 we harvested 4.6 million acres of soybeans (Most up to date info I have so that’s what I’m using).

At an average yield of 45, our farmers in my congressional district have collectively lost $95,000,000 in the last 3 days due to Trumps trade policy. I am calling my congressman to see if they have a plan to help their constituents.

56

u/asbestoswasframed 1d ago

Oof.

This damage will be felt here for decades.

Between this and Medicaid cuts closing rural hospitals, the heartland is quickly turning into a Mad Max hellscape of poverty and meth.

24

u/LifeUuuuhFindsAWay 1d ago

“Witness me”

12

u/helluvastorm 1d ago

It has been that for years and years.

77

u/spaceface545 1d ago

When farmers can’t sell their harvests this fall they should go shutdown their state capitals in protest like EU farmers do (I know they won’t)

66

u/mkvgtired 1d ago

Why would they protest? This is exactly what the vast majority of farmers wanted.

27

u/spaceface545 1d ago

I hope they enjoy it! Soy loaf, soy casserole, and soy cake for dinner!

9

u/tjdux 1d ago

Corn loaf, corn casserole, and corn cakes is more likey.

Assuming they can afford the ammonia lol.

Farmers local to me seem to be planting much more corn this season.

12

u/helluvastorm 1d ago

We are going to be joining them in eating all that soy. Beggars can’t be choosers. We’re about to become beggars

2

u/Opcn 1d ago

Hopefully this dark cloud has a silver bacon lining for my breakfast table.

2

u/Montymisted 7h ago

There are two small farmers around here that are incredibly pro Trump. I think they might lose their farm.

2

u/spaceface545 6h ago

lol. Can’t wait for the “coastal elite” to buy up more rural property

15

u/pudding7 1d ago

Ha!  It will absolutely NOT be tough to throw some subsidies at growers.   Farmers are the biggest welfare queens in the country, and the GOP doesn't care a bit about hypocrisy. 

3

u/Dry_System9339 1d ago

Bye bye rainforest

3

u/ValuableShoulder5059 1d ago

Our soy just rallied 30 cents up.

You have to realize China hasn't been buying that much of our soy as they can get it from the "stolen" seed being used in Brazil cheaper.

1

u/Imfarmer 1d ago

Where?

71

u/Opcn 1d ago

The whole rest of the world is working together to get by without trading with the US.

25

u/bentmonkey 1d ago

It really is odd how trump has made the US a trade pariah essentially with these tariffs, who wants to trade with the US when they take such actions?

21

u/sherilaugh 1d ago

He forgets the world can function fine without the USA. We have a ton of other countries to trade with.

7

u/bentmonkey 1d ago

The US steps down, I hope Canada and the rest of the world steps up.

4

u/blogasdraugas 1d ago

Maybe we can get some irradiated shit from russia.

20

u/Ranew 1d ago

Gotta hand everything over to BRICS.

8

u/Imfarmer 1d ago

Yes, for someone who was threatening other countries if they didn't keep the dollar as reserve currency, he sure is encouraging them to go to anything at all.

96

u/Particular-Jello-401 1d ago

Good thing we don’t buy much from china. Wait that means Walmart is gonna get expensive

5

u/BigMuscles 1d ago

Only if they have Walmarts in China.

7

u/CrossP 1d ago

They have many though the layout and selection of a Chinese Walmart more resembles a Sam's Club. It's meant to be a place to conveniently shop for mid-level luxury items

18

u/FewEntertainment3108 1d ago

Oh. That'll hurt.

33

u/Coldatahd 1d ago

How could Biden do this? 😭💀

21

u/Ranew 1d ago

ThAnKs ObAmA!

42

u/LifeUuuuhFindsAWay 1d ago

Calm down everyone; at least millionaires will still get a tax break!

15

u/Neoliberal_Boogeyman 1d ago

And cheap land to make more tenant farmers

7

u/helluvastorm 1d ago

4.5 TRILLION!

14

u/3d_explorer 1d ago

Is that 34% additional or did they just raise it from 33% to 34%?

51

u/Sn0fight 1d ago

Additional 34%. The US is about to find out that China dont fuck around. They will match the US dollar for dollar, forever and ever.

13

u/CrossP 1d ago

Their president doesn't even have to worry about elections

1

u/DFX1212 2h ago

Unfortunately, neither does ours and anyone thinking he does isn't paying attention.

-22

u/ValuableShoulder5059 1d ago

And last time China tried that, it didn't work so well for them.

27

u/ohiobluetipmatches 1d ago

Last time China tried that, it wasn't the entire world in a trade war against us. China, Japan and South Korea are working together to work against the US. Canada and Europe are working together against the US.

We just tariffed all of Asia based on trade deficits, including places like Singapore. It's bonkers.

Gotta hope North Korea and Russia really want that soy, since that's who we are in line with now.

18

u/sherilaugh 1d ago

Yall tariffed penguins.

8

u/mkvgtired 1d ago

It did not, however, Xi is a dictator that couldn't care less how much the populace is harmed. He is very similar to trump in that way.

16

u/ohiobluetipmatches 1d ago

It also doesn't matter because China is comparatively the good guy this time, and all of the rich nations will do business with them instead of us because 1. They aren't tariffing the fuck out of everyone for no reason, making annexation threats and abandoning agreements. And 2. Financially it's what makes sense for anyone to do.

-15

u/ValuableShoulder5059 1d ago

It absolutely did. The price of meat went up so high in China they in turn were importing meat from Australia. Who was in turn buying our soy to use as feed. Putting a tariff on something your country can not produce doesn't work well.

You have to realize that one of the reasons we export almost nothing except farm product is because almost everywhere already has a tariff on us goods. Why can't we do the same so we stop exporting our nations wealth?

16

u/ohiobluetipmatches 1d ago

We have 4.1% unemployment, except that will skyrocket now. The reason we export almost nothing is because we are a tech and services based economy making exponentially more wealth than resources based economies. This isn't 1735.

We are still not going to export anything because we just tariffed everyone. Unless you want our wages to drop down to a fraction of a dollar an hour, importing from other countries will still be cheaper. They will jump ramp up production or diversify more.

If you have money to build a factory, you go to China or Mexico still. Why the fuck would you plop down in the US and pay 30x more for labor, costs which are even higher now because of tariffs, and then wait literal decades to turn a profit when you can do it for a fraction of the cost literally anywhere else in the world that isn't a developed nation?

This is so basic it has been known and experienced since the 1800s. Economists have studied it forever. Here is ronald reagan talking about the idiocy of tariffs. https://youtu.be/5t5QK03KXPc?si=SjNmVGI9yZtfIx54

-15

u/ValuableShoulder5059 1d ago

Why would you think jobs coming back here increases unemployment? Factories and warehouses are being BUILT. Yeah unlike China were they have debt slaves working for room and board (rice and a shared bed) we won't have nearly as many people working in each as there are a lot more automated machines being built and installed instead of relying on dirt cheap human labor for the majority of the work.

You can't export services. Services literally exist to serve people who already have wealth.

Tech isn't an export. You could argue our patents sure, except China uses out patents as the source to copy. We simply don't have the exports to cover our imports which is why as a whole country we are losing wealth. It's why the dollar is getting weaker. It's a source of inflation.

14

u/ohiobluetipmatches 1d ago

Why would you think jobs are coming back here?

13

u/ohiobluetipmatches 1d ago edited 1d ago

Actually, explain to me like I'm 5. We're at 4% unemployment. We just nuked the economy. Trillions of dollars of loss. We pissed off every trading partner. Massive dip in tourism and business.

What jobs are coming back? Who is going to fill them? Laid off google and apple workers? Why the hell would they want manufacturing or crop picking jobs making less than 100x what they were making?

Out of this money and jobs we nuked from the economy, who is going to pay for infrastructure, development, farming, etc.? Who are they selling to?

Are you proposing we are going to scale costs back so much that poor countries are going to start buying from us now? Domestically, you think we are replacing the ENTIRE WORLD in purchasing power? After we just purged the economy?

Do you think the world is a village or something? We're not trading chickens. We buy cheap exports produced at a fraction of what we can produce. We buy resources from places that have them. We export things people need. Trade deficits happen. Tariffs have already existed for food production.

The united states subsidizes the hell out of agriculture, or at least did until now. It's a matter of national security. Food production. Other countries tariff and also subsidize food. Because if they lose all of their food production capacity to cheap, subsidized US food exports, then when an orange dictator takes power in the US he has the power to cut food supply and destroy that country.

There's no cheap production jobs coming back. There never will be unless we tank ourselves into a subsistence economy. We make value in this country. Brands, weapons, tech, finance, consulting.

12

u/Drzhivago138 """BTO""" 1d ago

Factories and warehouses are being BUILT.

Where? And are these good-paying jobs that people want?

5

u/Bald_Nightmare 1d ago

What's really funny is these idiots don't realize that to build those factories it's going to require materials that have to be IMPORTED!

1

u/mkvgtired 1d ago

Reread my comment. I agree with you it didn't work out well. Xi doesn't care if his people suffer, just like trump doesn't care.

1

u/mynameisneddy 1d ago

China imports a lot of meat (and dairy) from NZ, Australia and Brazil and has done for decades. At one stage they were short of meat because of an outbreak of African Swine Fever but that’s over now. They aren’t going to have any problem replacing the US.

0

u/Sn0fight 1d ago

Oh? You mean in 2016 when Trump imposed tariffs on them? Because that didnt seem to phase them much.

7

u/Ranew 1d ago

Additional is my understanding.

1

u/mkvgtired 1d ago

Where are you getting that 33% figure from?

11

u/nghiemnguyen415 1d ago edited 12h ago

China’s U.S. soybean imports

2010 - $10.8B

2011 - $10.4B

2012 - $14.9B

2013 - $13.8B

2014 - $15.8B

2015 - $12.7B

2016 - $14.2B

2017 - $12.3B

2018 - $3.1B

2019 - $7.9B

2020 - $14.2B

2021 - $17B

2022 - $16.4B

2023 - $14.8B

2024 - $12.8B

Conclusion -

1.) Democrats are better for American farmers.

2.) Average trade of $13.7B from 2010-2015

3.) The Orange Mumbling Buffon made a record low of $3.1B, a trade so bad that it hadn’t been seen since 2006 under another Republican president($2.8B).

4.) Numbers don’t lie.

5.) DonTheCon is an awful deal maker, as two of the worst trading years were under TraitorDictator Cheeto Dorito’s term.

Why do farmers, who experienced the shit show in real time keep on voting for a known Russian puppet?

2

u/ohiobluetipmatches 15h ago

Because of religious bullshit.

2

u/Imfarmer 1d ago

Democrats have consistently been better for Farmers, but we/they keep voting Republican because "Freedom."

2

u/nghiemnguyen415 1d ago

There’s no freedom when you cannot sell to whomever you want.

3

u/Odd-Historian-6536 1d ago

Where does Brazil sell the rest of their crop. If China displaces US soy with Brazilian soy, then some Brazilian customers will be shorted. Or is there an abundance of soy?

13

u/Ranew 1d ago

Brazil is continually expanding acres. They'll happily cut and burn acres to capture market, and China will bankroll infrastructure expansion.

3

u/Neoliberal_Boogeyman 1d ago

Chainsaws are cheap and you can cut down a whole bunch of trees down there.

1

u/LavishnessOk3439 1d ago

Even easier they’ll just burn it down

2

u/Imfarmer 1d ago

Brazil has enough bushels, they just need shipping capacity.

1

u/CaprioPeter 9h ago

This spells ruin for the Amazon. Unbelievable