US soybean crisis is a 'man-made disaster caused by' Trump. And farmers know it.

[Jilly_in_VA]

Chris Brennan


John Bartman was where he wanted to be on Oct. 14 – but not doing what he wanted to be doing – while sitting on the tractor his grandfather purchased in 1965, on the Illinois farm his family has worked for five generations.

Bartman wanted to be harvesting his soybeans – Illinois ranks first among American states in land dedicated to that crop – and selling them to China. Instead, he was using his phone to speak in a Zoom meeting arranged by the Democratic National Committee.

Bartman told the journalists on that call that his family has seen hard times come and go in farming. He recalled the American farm crisis of the 1980s as a time of particular strife. And he blames his current predicament on one man.

"Let's be clear: This is a man-made disaster caused by Donald Trump and his administration," Bartman said as soybean farmers across America, in the middle of their annual harvest, have anxiously watched their biggest market vanish.

China, which until 2024 was the biggest importer of American soybeans, has retaliated against Trump's chaotic trade war tariffs by refusing to buy the crop from our country now, shifting its purchases to other countries.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2025/10/15/trumps-tariff-war-china-soybean-farms-risk/86692005007/?tbref=hp

I don't think even I anticipated that it would be this bad, so I'll give the farmers some grace.