The United States imported a record $263 billion in agricultural and related products in 2024. The export side was valued at $191 billion, down from 2022’s record $213 billion. This isn’t just a bad quarter. This is the systematic dismantling of American agricultural dominance through the blunt instrument of trade war. This weapon has historically proven as effective as using dynamite for surgery.
U.S. sorghum exports to China dropped to 78,316 metric tons in January and February from more than 1.4 million metric tons over the same period a year earlier, down 95%, according to government data. When a 94% collapse in any sector makes headlines, it’s usually called a catastrophe. When it’s American agriculture, it’s apparently called policy.
This isn’t just about sorghum. It’s about the controlled demolition of a $191 billion export machine. This machine took decades to build. It was crippled in mere months.
The Suicide Strategy: How America Engineered Its Own Isolation
Trade wars follow a predictable script. First, impose tariffs. Next, trigger retaliation. Then, watch domestic industries suffer. Finally, throw taxpayer money at the problem. The Agriculture Department estimated that the retaliation delivered more than a $27 billion loss in U.S. agricultural exports during Trump’s first term. The remarkable feat is that we’re doing it again, but with higher stakes and thinner margins.
Nearly every crop that we are planting in 2025 shows no profit on paper. Josh Gackle, chairman of the American Soybean Association, warns about this. Unlike 2018, when farmers had financial cushions, today’s agricultural sector enters this trade war already bleeding. Last year, we’re told that there were four times more defaults on farm loans due to the weak farm economy.
The timing is surgical in its cruelty. All of this tariff drama is unfolding in the spring. This is when farmers are making decisions about planting big export crops like corn and soybeans. Farmers must decide what to plant without knowing if their primary markets will exist come harvest time.
Consider the strategic insanity: About half of U.S. soybeans, the country’s largest agricultural export to China, were shipped to the Asian nation in 2024, totalling $12.8 billion in trade. Now China has imposed 125% tariff on all US imports, making American soybeans prohibitively expensive. The response? Double down on the policy that created the crisis.
The Brazil Dividend: How Trade Wars Create Permanent Competitors
Every bushel of soybeans America loses to tariffs doesn’t simply vanish—it creates permanent market share for competitors. Brazil gained about $4 billion in agricultural export to China in 2018 during the first trade war. This wasn’t temporary displacement; it was structural realignment.
“This is going to cost the U.S. a lot of export business,” Jack Scoville, vice president of the Chicago-based Price Futures Group, said. “We’re pissing off everybody. That’s the problem.” The arithmetic is merciless. When you alienate your largest customer, they don’t wait for you to change your mind. They find new suppliers.
Brazil, with its expanding agricultural infrastructure and absence of trade war baggage, has positioned itself as the reliable alternative. Current geopolitics will likely drive farmers to produce more soybeans. This is especially true in Brazil, where expansion had been slowing lately. This information is reported by HedgePoint Global Markets. American trade policy is literally financing Brazilian agricultural expansion.
The historical precedent is sobering. Countries that lose major export markets during trade disputes rarely recover their full market share, even after disputes end. Markets, once diverted, develop new relationships, infrastructure, and dependencies that prove remarkably durable.
The Systemic Fragility: When Trade Wars Meet Financial Reality
What distinguishes this agricultural crisis from previous trade disputes is the underlying financial weakness of American farming. Inflation-adjusted imports were the third highest on record in 2024, behind only 2021 and 2022, while last year’s U.S. agricultural and related exports were among the lowest of the last decade-plus by value.
The numbers reveal a sector already in distress before the first tariff was imposed. USDA’s latest forecast estimates a record-breaking $45.5 billion trade deficit for U.S. agriculture in fiscal year 2025—the fourth agricultural trade deficit in the last 50 years, following decades of substantial surpluses.
“No one can replace all the volume that China buys,” one farm operator reported to agricultural trade groups. Yet the current strategy assumes exactly that—that alienating your largest customer is sustainable because smaller markets will absorb the overflow. This is the economic equivalent of burning your house down to spite your landlord.
The cascading effects are already visible. A hay exporter in central Washington sends a large amount of its crop output to Hong Kong and mainland China. The exporter was told to reroute most of the exports shipped in the past two weeks. They had to redirect them to Japan, Dubai, Taiwan, and a few Chinese ports. Those changes came at a cost to the company, which told the AgTC that “it’s not sustainable”.
The Taxpayer Bailout Cycle: Welfare Disguised as Policy
When trade wars damage agriculture, the standard response is government subsidies—taxpayer money used to paper over policy failures. “We’re already starting to think about a mitigation effort. It might be like the aid provided by Trump’s administration during his first-term trade dispute.” Secretary Brooke Rollins said this on Fox News this week.
Washington spent almost $30 billion to do so last time. The pattern is predictable and expensive. First, impose tariffs that damage American exporters. Then use taxpayer funds to compensate for the damage. It’s agricultural welfare disguised as strategic policy.
“Farmers want markets. We need markets. We want to sell our grain at a profit,” said Hartman, adding that CCC payments are only a short-term fix. “It’s supplemental. It’s needed because it keeps farmers from getting in worse financial situations. However, payments are not the answer to a future successful agriculture operation in the United States”.
The subsidies create their own distortions. “If you’re too generous with one crop compared to another, farmers might base planting decisions. They could rely on anticipated compensation payments,” warns former USDA chief economist Joseph Glauber.
The Geopolitical Suicide: Weaponizing Your Own Strengths
American agriculture has been one of the few remaining sectors where the United States maintained clear global dominance. The U.S. will represent roughly 15 percent of the world’s production total. It will account for more than 60 percent of the world’s sorghum exports. This isn’t just economic power—it’s geopolitical leverage.
Food security concerns drive much of China’s agricultural import policy, making reliable suppliers strategically valuable. The United States repeatedly disrupts agricultural trade for short-term tactical gains. By doing this, it is eroding one of its most powerful forms of soft influence.
China is looking for more allies beyond Brazil to counter US tariffs and expand trade cooperation. On Thursday, China announced that it was willing to work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries. The aim is to strengthen communication and coordination. Trade wars don’t just cost money—they accelerate the formation of alternative trading blocs that exclude American influence.
The strategic shortsightedness is breathtaking. The policy sacrifices long-term geopolitical assets. It aims for short-term political theater. Instead of leveraging agricultural dominance for concessions on technology transfer and intellectual property, it focuses on immediate gains.
The Point of No Return: When Damage Becomes Irreversible
A recent study by the University of North Dakota highlighted the stakes. If China imposes a 20% retaliatory tariff on U.S. soybeans, the state’s soybean exports could fall by nearly 60%. This could cost North Dakota farmers an estimated $639.9 million. But the real damage isn’t measured in one year’s losses—it’s in the permanent restructuring of global agricultural supply chains.
“If we lose soybean and corn exports for a year, or even two years, Brazil and Argentina will react. They are going to put more acres under the plow,” Kuehl said. “China will buy its soybeans from Brazil and Argentina, since it feels like it can depend on those countries more. So there’s long-term impacts”.
The infrastructure of international trade—ports, processing facilities, transportation networks, financing relationships—takes years to build and mere months to reroute. Once China’s supply chains adapt to Brazilian soybeans and Argentine grain, they will maintain those relationships. The economic and logistical momentum supports this even after trade disputes end.
“There is no margin for error in the current farm economy.” Kentucky farmer Caleb Ragland said this. He serves as president of the American Soybean Association. Yet current policy acts as if agriculture has infinite resilience. This imposes maximum stress on a sector already operating at the edge of viability.
The Uncomfortable Truth
The collapse of American agricultural exports isn’t just an unfortunate side effect of necessary trade policy. It is the predictable result of using economic warfare against your own comparative advantages. “It is like shutting down all U.S. agricultural imports. We are not sure if any imports will be viable with 34% duty,” said a Singapore-based trader.
The question facing American policymakers isn’t whether trade wars work—the evidence is overwhelming that they don’t. The question is whether the United States is willing to sacrifice one of its few remaining sources of global economic dominance for the illusion of toughness.
Every day this continues, Brazil plants more soybeans. Every month of trade disruption makes American suppliers less reliable in the eyes of global buyers. Every billion dollars in lost exports creates permanent market share for competitors who never chose to weaponize their own strengths.
How much of American agricultural dominance are we willing to destroy to prove we can?