Trade Ties and Tariffs: The Soybean Story

In the increasingly bitter trade war between the United States and China, perhaps nobody has more at stake than America’s soybean farmers, whose crop has become the country’s single biggest export to China.

Michael Barbaro speaks to an Iowa farmer who helped build that $13 billion market, and asks her what President Trump’s sky-high tariffs mean for her and for tens of thousands of other American farmers.

Guest: April Hemmes, a soybean farmer in Iowa.

Background reading: 

• Soybean producers warned that farms could go under after the Trump administration hit China with tariffs of 145 percent.
• China has long relied on the U.S. for soybeans. But with new steep tariffs, it is likely to look even more to Brazil and Argentina.

For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Photo: Kathryn Gamble for The New York Times

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