What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war : Planet Money

LaVon and Craig Griffieon on their farm close to Ankeny, Iowa.

Grant Gerlock/for NPR

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Grant Gerlock/for NPR

LaVon and Craig Griffieon on their farm close to Ankeny, Iowa.

Grant Gerlock/for NPR

The U.S. exports billions of {dollars} value of agricultural merchandise every year — issues like soybeans, corn and pork. And over the past month, these exports have been caught up in a commerce warfare and topic to monumental retaliatory tariffs.

U.S. farmers have been collateral injury in a commerce warfare earlier than. In 2018, President Trump put tariffs on a bunch of Chinese language merchandise together with flatscreen TVs, medical gadgets and batteries. The thought was that the tariffs would make these Chinese language merchandise costlier so folks within the U.S. would purchase fewer of them and possibly purchase extra American items as a substitute.

However China matched these tariffs with retaliatory tariffs of their very own. They put tariffs on a whole lot of U.S. agricultural merchandise they’d been shopping for, like soybeans, sorghum, and livestock. That alternative seemed strategic. Hitting these merchandise with tariffs harm Trump’s voter base and would possibly assist China in a negotiation. And in some instances, China might discover inexpensive different choices from different international locations.

Immediately on the present, what occurred in 2018, how the federal government stepped in to forestall U.S. farms from going bankrupt, and what was misplaced even after the commerce warfare 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 government producer.

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Music: NPR Supply Audio – “Down the Rabbit Gap,” “Make Mine a Double,” and “Sorority.”