President Donald Trump is preparing a significant aid package for U.S. soybean farmers, aiming to help them weather China’s retaliatory boycott of American beans sparked by the ongoing trade war. The announcement comes as farmers express growing anxiety that time is rapidly running out to secure a deal that would allow them to sell this year’s harvest to their largest foreign customer.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the imminent support on Thursday, telling CNBC that the public could anticipate news of “substantial support for our farmers, especially the soybean farmers” as early as Tuesday. While specifics of the package remain unknown, it addresses a critical fallout of the unresolved trade dispute, which has seen China halt purchases of U.S. beans.
China, historically the top foreign buyer of American soybeans—a crop vital for oil and animal feed—last purchased U.S. beans in May and has completely bypassed American supplies for the harvest season that began in September.
President Trump acknowledged the economic pain in a Truth Social post on Wednesday. “The Soybean Farmers of our Country are being hurt because China is, for ‘negotiating’ reasons only, not buying,” he wrote. Trump justified the aid by stating, “We’ve made so much money on Tariffs, that we are going to take a small portion of that money, and help our Farmers.”
The President also confirmed his plans to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in four weeks, with soybeans being a “major topic of discussion.” The meeting is expected to take place on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) annual summit in South Korea at the end of October.
Soybeans are the top U.S. food export, representing about 14% of all overseas farm goods, with China typically purchasing a quarter of all American soybeans.
Caleb Ragland, a Kentucky farmer and president of the American Soybean Association (ASA), welcomed the administration’s acknowledgment but stressed that actions are needed quickly to prevent bankruptcies. He pointed out that farmers were already struggling with high costs and low prices before their largest buyer vanished.
“It’s just unfortunate that we’re being used as a bargaining chip in this trade war that’s not of our own doing,” Ragland said.
The ASA president warned that the clock is ticking for a U.S.-China deal. China has already ordered soybeans from competing countries like Brazil and Argentina for deliveries through December. “If they get another couple months, they’re into new crop soybeans in Brazil and Argentina. And they’re going to bypass us altogether if we’re not careful,” Ragland cautioned.
China has slapped a 20% retaliatory tariff on U.S. soybeans, making them non-competitive in price. This comes after Trump provided American farmers with more than $22 billion in aid in 2019, and nearly $46 billion in 2020 (the latter figure including COVID-related support).
