Trump’s Trade War Caused a $15 Billion Decline in U.S. Farm Sales to China

Source: Reason
by Ari Shtein

“When President Donald Trump announced broad and arbitrary import taxes last April — tariffs that the Supreme Court would later determine were illegal — he said they would uplift domestic producers, even though many economists predicted the opposite. More than a year later, Americans can safely say that the economists were right. Trump’s tariffs have not only failed in their central aim — to bring manufacturing jobs back to America — they’ve also hurt Americans across a range of economic sectors, including agriculture. That’s the latest analysis from the North Dakota State University (NDSU) Agricultural Trade Monitor, which recently found that between March 2025 and February 2026, annualized U.S. agricultural exports to China dropped by nearly $15 billion. This is almost $5 billion more in lost trade to China than what American farmers saw during the first Trump administration.” (05/27/26)

https://reason.com/2026/05/27/trumps-trade-war-caused-a-15-billion-decline-in-u-s-farm-sales-to-china/