US soybean farmers worry about being further side-lined after Argentina rescue dealpublished at 19:28 BST
Danielle Kaye
New York business reporter
Image source, ReutersThe Trump administration’s $20bn financial rescue plan to Argentina, which Trump and Milei have spent their meeting discussing, has raised alarm in the US agriculture sector, especially among one group that has seen export markets dry up: soybean farmers.
China, the world’s biggest buyer of the legume, has been decreasing its reliance on US soybeans since trade wars during Trump’s first term. It stopped buying from the US altogether in May, as retaliatory tariffs on US agricultural exports have prompted Chinese buyers to turn to South America – led by Brazil – instead.
Now China is turning to Argentina for its soybeans, too, after the country dropped its export taxes on the product.
US farmers are calling out the risk of being further sidelined as the Trump administration props up a country that is increasingly selling soybeans to China.
“Even that is displacing US soybeans,” said Mark Legan, a livestock, corn and soybean farmer in Putnam County, Indiana.
Farmers are poised to get a separate bailout from the federal government, mirroring similar aid during Trump’s first term. But Legan said the emergency aid, while welcome, would not address the underlying issue of falling crop prices amid China’s u-turn.
Chris Barrett, an economics professor at Cornell University, called the Argentina bailout “peculiar”.
“Our first bailout is to Argentina and Wall Street investors in Argentina,” Barrett said. “Of the many people whose businesses and jobs have been disrupted in the last six months, that seems like a really strange place to start the queue.”
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