Economy

“It will decimate much of farm country”

Written by SK Ashby

CNN sent reporters to rural Minnesota where they spoke to soybean farmers who, despite voting for Trump, could lose more than anyone else because Trump's policies.

Now, I'm not going to talk about their lamentations, but do I want to take a look at what's going to happen next.

The CEO of the Minnesota Soybean Association told CNN there's not much time left to avoid a catastrophe.

"We have got about a month and a half where we can play with this thing and then after that, these prices have to be corrected, so we urge the administration to do what it has to do and do it quickly," said Tom Slunecka, the CEO of the Minnesota Soybean Association. "If we get into harvest with prices like they are, it will decimate much of farm country."

When he says the prices will "have to be corrected," what he's saying is they'll either have to take a huge loss or dramatically raise domestic prices to compensate for Trump's trade war.

Harvesting season will began after Trump's wider regime of tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods are implemented on July 6th and that's when reality will set in for millions of people from Minnesota all the way down to Texas.

Like their distant counterparts on Wall Street, the agriculture industry would like to believe everything is normal and that Trump isn't going to screw them, but the day is quickly approaching.

There's little reason to believe Trump will back off at the last minute before his tariffs are implemented on July 6th and plenty of reason to think he will only escalate. Trump has already ordered his unhinged trade representative Robert Lighthizer to draw up plans to implement $400 billion in additional tariffs and taxes on imports from China, representing nearly everything we import from China.

What happens in the agriculture industry between August and October ahead of the Thanksgiving and holiday season could be a significant factor in the midterm election.