CNBC has an article up this morning about farmers of soybeans, chickpeas and other products and dt's tariffs.
"Soybean futures are down 16 percent since April. And growers have seen a 25 percent decline in dry pea prices, a 40 percent fall in lentil prices and a 49 percent drop in chickpea prices."
"Soybean farmers and processors in North Dakota were expecting 16 trade delegates from China to visit from Sept. 17 to 20, and hoped for big orders to come out of the meetings. But a week ago, they heard the visit was canceled."
"They indicated it was not the right political time to visit," said Simon Wilson, executive director for the North Dakota Trade Office, who tried to salvage the meetings unsuccessfully."
Unfortunately it isn't just China canceling it also includes recent cancellations by India (also a very large purchaser of US beans) and European countries.
I have no experience with farmers and their markets at all but this article makes it clear that the ramifications go well beyond the farmers themselves. The article explains how the entire transportation chain will begin to change with ships altering their routes based on the reliability of the products to ship and where they are going.
The article does not discuss the politics but covers the potential long term ramifications of this folly by dt.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/20/farmers-scramble-as-china-and-european-trade-missions-cancel-visits.html
The states that are under attack by dt and his policies are mostly what are considered red states and it appears that this is going to come to fruition before the November general election. The damage done to these farmers and the communities they live in is not going to be caused by floods, droughts or pests (in fact this year there will be an over supply adding to the pain) it is going to be the direct result of dt and his policies. There is also a direct line to the Republican Congressional delegations and their unwillingness to exercise their Constitutional duty to levy tariffs.
Republicans have been totally unwilling to limit dt but in this case it is the Constitution that requires Congress alone to levy tariffs and Congress has allowed one exception for any POTUS and that is national security. There is no question that dt is lying when he claims national security exceptions for levying tariffs against Canada, Mexico or the EU. These Republicans could and should have taken action but they instead became dt enablers hurting the economy of the very state they represent.
Democrats need to drive this point home to farmers for the next two months as these products are harvested and farmers make decisions regarding their planting for next season.
It may not in the end matter but if I was a farmer with a sudden drop in my income of 16, 25 or 40 percent of my due to dt and Republicans I would want those Republicans to share in my pain personally by losing the farm vote in November.