Soybean Farmers Face Stress, Chaos
“I don’t even watch the news anymore, because everything that’s said really affects us and our market, and we have enough stress,” said one farmer.
Soybean exports are nowhere close to pledges.
As a result, Soybean Farmers Face Stress, Chaos and Trump continues to attack China for the trade deal he made.
When he met with the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said he expected China to fulfill their purchase commitments, but most experts say those targets were considered too optimistic even before the global demand shock hit.
The forthcoming book by former national security adviser John Bolton suggests, in one of many explosive claims, that those purchase targets might have been set artificially high by design in order to bolster President Donald Trump’s chances of reelection. Bolton alleged that in a sit-down meeting, Trump specifically asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping to agree to more crop purchases in order to help Trump’s standing in the Midwestern states he carried in 2016, and whose support he seeks for the November election.
The stress soybean farmers are under — and the ambivalence they feel about a president who promised to go to bat for them, but has continued to attack the very deal he championed — is a microcosm of the disruptive impact of the trade war.
Secret Talks in Hawaii
Bloomberg reports China to Speed U.S. Farm Purchases After Secretive Hawaii Talks
“During my meeting with CCP Politburo Member Yang Jiechi, he recommitted to completing and honoring all of the obligations of Phase 1 of the trade deal between our two countries,” Pompeo said in a tweet on Thursday, using an acronym for the Chinese Communist Party.
Pompeo offered no details beyond the tweet, but that was the first substantive news out of the secretive meeting with Yang at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii on Wednesday. It’s still unclear how the meeting came about or who had asked for it. Both sides have said the other initiated it.
China purchased only $4.65 billion in the first four months of the year, data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show. That’s only 13% of the goal set in the trade deal and almost 40% below the same period in 2017.
Bolton’s Book
According to an unredacted passage shown to Vanity Fair by a source, Trump’s ask is even more crudely shocking when you read Trump’s specific language. “Make sure I win,” Trump allegedly told Xi during a dinner at the G20 conference in Osaka, Japan last summer. “I will probably win anyway, so don’t hurt my farms.… Buy a lot of soybeans and wheat and make sure we win.”
Question of the Day
What did Trump offer to get China to live up to the deal it made?
I suspect something regarding Huawei and 5G but that is just my guess.
China surely did not agree to buy more soybeans out of the goodness of Xi’s heart.
So what did Trump secretly give up in return?
Curiously, this just came in.
Secret Deal Off Already?
Trump Clarifies Navarro’s Tweet
Decoupling Nonsense
Please recall In a Nonsensical Tweet, Trump Proposes “Complete Decoupling From China”
What a circus.
Mish
Trump has pumped a lot of money into farmers. First Market Facilitation payments of up to $84 per acre for corn and soybeans. Now we have CFAP (COVID 19) price loss payments and then WHIP+ for the excess rain in 2019. This while offering heavily subsidized Federal Crop Insurance. The real issue is that technology changes the game. Whereas 300 acres 40 years ago could take care of a family, it became 1500 acres in 2005 and now one farmer with limited part time help and is maximizing equipment can take care of 5000 acres. The average corn/soy farmer is about 1500 acres. That is the problem.
In addition, yields have exploded upward. Most of the bankruptcies have occurred in ND and other northern places where soybeans shouldn’t be grown anyway due to climate. The soybeans in the north go west to China. Midwest beans go to New Orleans and around the world other places.
The US breeders chose varieties for yield. The higher the yield the lower the protein. The world buys soybeans protein, not soybean raw bushels. South America due to sun quality (equator) can grow better and more protein. ND is too far north.
The Trump admin is creating a situation where we are producing due to subsidies and not actual need. How well do you think that will end up?
So much winning. It is hard to take.
I’m skeptical of Bolton’s claims that Trump begged China to help him get re-elected. Why would Trump do that? Obviously, China backs Biden. If he begged China to buy more Soybeans to help him get re-elected, that is like waving a flag saying “If you want to get rid of me, don’t buy soybeans”.
Cos he’s desperate perhaps?
actually Chinese social media have been rooting for tRump, the most stable genius.
Trump tells aides he supports second round of stimulus checks When do I get my check??
The easiest people to control are incompetent and ignorant people who are unqualified for their position. Send Navarro to hint at Trump’s desire–who else would do it? It’s dangerous to hire people who are confident in their knowledge, experience and opinion. That is way it has always worked for any strong-man ruler. And this is why the strong-man finally get overthrown by surprise–he’s become more and more ignorant of how the world really is.
“What did Trump offer to get China to live up to the deal it made?”
…
Uh, when has China EVER lived up to a deal?
Imo, China will agree to things if it means the heat turned down … knowing full well they won’t honor, anyways.
Just finished Secret Empires. The way of the world is that countries doing business with US make deals with family members of politicians. Perfectly legal to make them (usually offspring) insanely wealthy and then … stand … and … watch … as politicians back off.
You mean like Mitch McConnell and Elaine Chao…After winning the election, McConnell said, “The biggest asset I have by far is the only Kentucky woman who served in a president’s cabinet, my wife, Elaine Chao.”
His wife is deeply tied to Taiwan and mainland China through her parent’s shipping company.
He is also worth millions more after his marriage to Chao…so “she’s an asset”, right.
Oh, yes. Part of book devoted to Mitch and Elaine.
Center stage was Hunter Biden, though. Made a bundle outside of Ukraine. If Biden elected POTUS, I fully expect Hunter to be a billionaire.
Trump has never been pro-farmer any more than he is pro-military or pro-woman. Farmers need cheap immigrant labor and no tariffs. China knows Trump is weak, especially when he grovels for election help. Xi also knows that no other country would align with Trump on trade or anything else. Everyone can see through his hyperbolic bluster. Trump seems incapable of weighing the positive and negative impacts of any decision. He can’t grasp complexity, so he treats each new challenge like its a whack-a-mole game.
Wake up! Trump is only and has always only been pro Trump. Everything is for the benefit of him, his family and his businesses.
Down on ending talks, back up on status-quo.
By the way, the plan is to return manufacturing to the US, not to push it into other low-rent countries.
Or isn’t it?
Another ploy to grab low-info voters.
Tough on China. Yup.
Trump’s headstone will read …..”Here lies, lies, lies, lies …….”.
As should every politician’s headstone
All aboooard captain trump’s failboat!
Maybe you didn’t notice, Mish – though you did a great job early on raising the alarm – but after the Trade deal was inked, there was this pandemic thing which happened and now China and US are in a quasi cold war situation. Most of the trade deal stuff is up in the air until the economy fully re-opens again and the pandemic is a thing of the past. And now there is a violence-laden US election with no end of bloody riots being threatened, it’s going to take that much more time for things to settle.
In any case, the goal of the trade deals is decoupling. Doesn’t mean there won’t be trade, but first they have to get a large number of manufacturers out of there to rebalance the global supply chains. That is now underway as many are leaving China for friendlier host nations around – Japan, Vietnam, Australia, US, Taiwan, Thailand, UK, India etc., all of whom are brought into the new Sovereigntist axis which has been emerging as counterweight to the big Russia-China axis, funded by globalist banking cartels who are now trying to overthrow a US President – and still failing.
If the “globalist banking cartels” wanted to overthrow Trump, all they would have to have someone “leak” his record of borrowing and bankruptcies and his ties to the dark side of money.
Sovereigntist—huh?
“sov·er·eign·tist”..noun..CANADIAN.. person who supports Quebec’s right to self-government or full independence.
I don’t need no dictionary to know what sovereigntist means!
But since it wasn’t clear enough: ‘sovereign nation states.’
That sort of comment is a sure sign of someone without a coherent argument.
They had 2.5 years with Mueller team inspecting everything.
Then they had an impeachment.
Both came up empty.
Didn’t you notice?
Nah…. you just KNOW he’s guilty, there just isn’t any evidence… yet.
But you just know….
Or even easier…the “globalist banking cartels” could call in all of his loans.
That’s what the globalists WANT you to think! They are beaming this message into your brain from Elon Musk’s satellite network! Quickly, don this special hat that deflects them!
“That is now underway as many are leaving China for friendlier host nations around – Japan, Vietnam, Australia, US, Taiwan, Thailand, UK, India etc., ” do you have any data point or links to back this claim, or is it just wishful thinking?
from basic search: ‘foreign companies leaving China’
Not hard to find if you try.
Mish – I wonder where your readers are who are continually crying TDS. Why are Trump supporters so quiet? Is a shift going on among even his most irrational supporters?
No, the cult is very much alive. Not well, but alive.
Reminds me of soccer fans here in the Netherlands (and other countries?)… When the other team is 3-0 down they tend to chant about how quiet the other fans are.
Hopefully they’re waking up and realizing our issues go way beyond red/blue.
Much of the narrative around Trump was always absurd, that one guy was going to save us from ourselves and drain the swamp. Even if Trump had been sincere that was never going to happen.
I think the problem is the alternative isnt that great either. Today Trump banned all labor visa programs for the rest of 2020. I’ve had friends who are citizens suddenly get a flurry of calls from tech companies like it’s the 1990s. I was actually hired because the h1b program was slowed under Trump.what is the Democrats value proposition to the upper middle class worker who tends to be indepedent but leans Republican because of jobs and taxes ?
>> the alternative
“The” alternative? No. There are others.
Don’t waste your vote on a D or R.
Eject ALL incumbents.
Part of the problem is that there are two main types of Trump supporters.
Some are devoted partisans. All leaders have them.
Others are those like myself who have found the attacks against him extraordinarily unfair and destabilizing. At this point I’ve come to the view that those attacking him so much are far more dangerous and bad than he.
And that goes for many in forums like this: the blindness of TDS serves to cover up what is really going on, which is the most concerted attempt to crash the American Republic and many leading western states in our lifetimes. Everyone is so fixated on the Trump phenomenon, usually in mainly personality not policy related terms (which is the clear intent of the non-stop demonization, a classic Alynski 101 tactic), that they are enabling this pernicious development. If you bring it up, you get those silly tinfoil hat comments. People are actually proud of their blindness to what’s going on. Amazing… but hardly unusual.
Finally, most people who TDS’ers call ‘Trump Supporters’ are simply those who don’t go along with such demonizing. But they usually have to put up with insults, scorn and shallow commentary in response. It’s a waste of time for all involved, so better to stay silent. Now Mish has clearly steered his blog into anti-Trump mode, most of those who aren’t into demonizing him all the time are probably staying away.
Sometimes Mish does a great job of presenting a view with substantiating data. He is fast, precise, insightful. It’s why I pop in. But of late he has been lacing his Trump stuff with far more poorly sourced hit piece material – some of which is entirely false – with far less substance. Pity. Serious, critical coverage of Trump without the emotive propaganda is sorely needed. But I’ve not been seeing it here.
The problem is that if you are convinced he is an evil idiot, you also are convinced that everything he does is stupid or dangerous etc. and therefore you don’t take it seriously at all. So maybe you are right, but if there is substance behind the policy moves, you will not examine it, you won’t see it at all. So all you are left with is personalized attacks.
One good thing with Trump he doesn’t get credit for: he’s the first President in decades not to initiate a war.
RE: “At this point I’ve come to the view that those attacking him so much are far more dangerous and bad than he.”
While definitely true of some who are attacking him, absolutely not true of everyone who is attacking him.
When all you can say is “I support Trump because he is not as bad and dangerous as some of those who are attacking him” you have to know you are really scraping the bottom of the barrel …
So some simply refuse to pretend that “bad and dangerous” is “good and helpful” simply because some who are attacking him are “worse and more dangerous”.
I don’t think he is ‘bad and dangerous’ but I also don’t think he is flawless or a saint. People like you keep saying he’s bad and dangerous and if that is your main yardstick, in response I say: the ones against him are far MORE bad and dangerous.
Personally, I think he hasn’t succeeded, but only because the forces against him have proven more effective at blocking him than he has been at evading capture. But evading capture has taken so much time and energy that he couldn’t get nearly as much done, plus – more importantly – clearly the country is still mainly run by corrupt power networks who are willing – and able – to suppress the economy, brainwash the population into terrified docility, riot without consequences and so forth.
His supporters believe this is a great teaching moment for the country, one revealing how fragile is the Republic, how wicked those determined to destroy it, that we should let them run amok some more to reveal the nature of this dangerous evil; and also that indictments will be coming down soon that will make it impossible for people to keep ignoring just how unfairly he has been attacked, and therefore his agenda undermined as well. I think this is partly true. But just because it is true doesn’t mean he will win.
Most people in America don’t care about politics, they just want their lives back. And if they feel that Trump being in office results in endless chaos, violence and hatred in the public square, they will vote him out. What they won’t understand is that the country probably will be irretrievably fractured, beyond repair.
That said, I’ve come to believe in the past few months that the country IS beyond repair and that breakup is the best possible outcome. But probably the globalists will win and we’ll find ourselves in some sort of surveillance state world order of sorts fairly soon. My almost-90 year old mother – no rabid Republican at all – is profoundly depressed by where the country is headed and I honestly think she is not long for the world, so sad it makes her.
You see, some of us see what is going on and become profoundly sad at how America is being destroyed.
Others just rejoice because…. well because Orange Man Bad.
The country is going to be destroyed by adolescent resentments and rancour unbridled in service to ruthless oligarchic totalitarians.
And so it goes!!
The good news for me is that I am personally phasing out of following it all. If by some miracle there is a course correction and things get back on track and Americans are Americans again and proud and happy about it: GREAT! If not, I don’t want to watch the blow by blow, thoroughly depressing collapse.
Given the fact that nearly everyone on this site has expressed the opinion that “America is being destroyed.”, differing only in their enumeration of their perceived destroyers of America (Fed, “deep state”, libs, cons, Dems, Reps, racists, antifa, white supremacists, BLM, etc. etc.), a lot of what you wrote is very familiar.
The thing that astounds me is how you and other Trump supporters seem to really believe that Trump’s objectives as President have been MAGA when Trump’s modus operandi throughout his entire life has clearly been entirely Trump-centric … Keep Pretending Trump is Great!
He has repeatedly proven by his actions and statements that his own self-aggrandizement has been his primary, perhaps only, objective his entire life. That he doesn’t so much “love America” as he loves what America has enabled him to get away with throughout his entire life.
And yes, for me that makes Trump just as “bad and dangerous” as any of the other entities on that brief list of destroyers of America presented above … but not just as individual Donald J. Trump … as President Donald J. Trump. The office tremendously magnifies the danger inherent in the individual.
So I think Bolton wasn’t lying when he said that Trump would do anything to win the election. Trump is basically running a live A/B experiment, where he tells Navarro to say one thing and on not liking the result (stock market dropping), issues a conflicting statement.
Trump has a future at Google for sure.
Exactly. Sell on the non-story.
Trump just clarified Navarro – good grief
So it’s trade deal vs. China started a pandemic vs. re-election of Trump vs. Navarro vs. Bolton ? And Taiwan and South China Sea plus something in the Himalayas. That means the stock market will go up?
No doubt some publisher’s now calling Navarro for his “side of the story”
So soya prices are low or there is a glut ? I don’t see that it matters if exports are to China or elsewhere, in terms of world market, unless China is strategically boycotting US produce. Maybe they were going to buy goods they did not need, or were willing to order at a higher than market price, but then maybe the US does not want to enter into that kind of relationship with China anyway? Talking from a free trade perspective obviously . So I guess this is more about Trump’s dealings than anything else, and how China is willing to play his approach, but that is a US loss not a Trump loss from where I am looking, unless you think the US can force China to buy.
Navarro says: “trade deal is over”.
The end of winning.
Wait and see…
one of the purposes of the trade deals featuring huge tariff costs to China was to back them into a corner. It was guaranteed they would try to get out of it.
So we got covid.
And now we are getting a massive economic and political reset.
It’s going to be tough and messy for a while – not to mention confusing.
There is a chance it will devolve into a bloody revolution or hot war.
But most likely people relying too much on psy-op media war tactics to control national psyches are going to find that their reach isn’t as deep as they thought. That sort of thing works well when there is no real conflict. But they have overplayed their hand, the general population is realising that their sense of basic reality and stability is under siege, and they will reject the offer and regroup.
Either way, the world will be very different by this time next year.
At which point China and US can recalibrate what is left of their relationship.
There is another conspiratorial potential in the mix which I am hoping for, without any evidence: the sovereigntists have done a deal with the Russia-China axis to overthrow the banking cartels, kick them out entirely from the world financial and trading arenas, eliminate the central banking networks and establish a solid money regime they all agree to work with. This is a consummation that all players would like, something they can all agree on. It will improve China’s chances of crafting a new Eurasian civilisation; and it will fulfil the economic nationalist America First (and UK first, Poland First, Italy First etc. ) agendas as well. But I haven’t seen any hint of this being in the works, it’s just what I personally hope might happen.