‘It is full blown crisis already’ farmers say

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The global backlash to President Trump’s tariffs is punishing U.S. agriculture, especially a decline in Chinese buying of U.S. farm products.

A leading agriculture exports group says “massive” losses are already
racking up at farms, with cancelled orders, pricing pressure as demand slumps and layoffs, as China stops buying products from pork to hay and straw, and lumber.

“No one can replace all the volume that China buys,” one farm operator reported.

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The clock is ticking on trade deals that the U.S. will need to strike with many nations, most notably China, to avoid what Trump’s Treasury Secretary has described as an “unsustainable” tariffs war. But in the U.S. farming sector, the damage has already been done and the economic crisis already begun.

U.S. agriculture exporters say the global backlash to President Trump’s tariffs is punishing them, especially a decline in Chinese buying of U.S. farm products, leading to cancelled export orders and layoffs. Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, a leading export trade group for farmers, tells CNBC the number of canceled purchases of U.S. agriculture should not be described as approaching a crisis. “It is a full-blown crisis already,” he said.

Data released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday revealed China made its biggest cancellation of pork orders since 2020, halting a shipment of 12,000 tons of pork.

AgTC says “massive” financial losses are already being shared by its members as a result of the trade war, based on reports it is receiving from member companies.

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