US farmers are standing by their man, Trump, even as trade war starts to bite
‘He’s making a high-risk business decision that probably should have been made a long time ago. But it’s definitely a risk’
Washington/Chicago — President Donald Trump’s trade disputes with China, Mexico and Canada are already eroding the value of American agricultural production, with soybean growers alone expected to lose at least $3.2bn during the next crop season. But many farmers — including some whose incomes are plunging as exports stall — are sticking by the man they helped vote into office. They’d just like him to win the trade war quickly, before the fall harvest starts compounding the problem in a couple of months — when congressional midterm elections also will be heating up. "President Trump is a businessman," says 57-year-old John King, who raises soybeans, maize and rice with his father and nephew outside Helena, Arkansas, about 160km east of Little Rock. "He’s making a high-risk business decision that probably should have been made a long time ago. But it’s definitely a risk." Agriculture is the third-biggest US export industry and a global juggernaut that has generated six decades of tra...
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