The TOI correspondent from Washington: The reason behind American trade overtures towards India amid punitive tariffs, manifested in President Trump’s friendly messages to Prime Minister Modi and sending a key trade negotiator to New Delhi, lies not just in the chambers of commerce in Washington DC, but in the vast farm lands of Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and other states in Middle America. Scores of reports and interviews with farmers reveal a growing sense of panic over unsold soy beans and corn, the top two US agricultural exports. The disquiet is channeling into anger at the Trump administration, whose decision, prompted by the President, to engage in a tariff war, particularly against China, has resulted in retaliatory measures by Beijing which has ended all agri purchases from US. China buys more than 60 percent of the world’s soya output, half of which comes from US, to feed its voracious pork industry.China is instead buying all its soya from Brazil, fueling Trump’s anger against BRICS while American farmers are fuming at Washington for the looming disaster ahead of the harvest season now underway. Soaring input costs, falling crop prices, the Chinese boycott, and growing uncertainty from trade policies, are causing what Caleb Ragland, a soybean farmer and president of the American Soybean Association, describes as a “five-alarm fire.” The upshot of all this is US farmers are on their knees, begging for intervention from the administration, which is now sending out its negotiators to talk to the Chinese, pleading with them to resume agri purchases, and even seeking New Delhi’s help with corn purchases even though India is self-sufficient in corn. US lawmakers, many of them Republicans from red MAGA leaning states, are worried about their prospects in the 2026 mid-term elections if there is no resolution to the tariff spat. These are some of the headlines one is seeing in the media reporting out of Middle America: Trump’s Tariffs DEVASTATE U.S. Farmers – Billions Lost in U.S. Agriculture “US Soybean Growers Beg Trump for China Trade Deal,” and “After Losing China Market, US Soybean President Realizes America Needs China to Be Great Again!Since most of Middle America is conservative Trump territory and predominantly support the President, Democrats and liberals are also having a field day trolling farmers via video posts with headlines such as “MAGA Soybean Farmers Begging America for Socialism After Mocking Welfare for Years. Many are mocking MAGA “mugs” from not learning from Trump’s first term, when he picked a similar tariff fight with China and had to eventually bail out farmers to the tune of $ 20 billion. By one account, 216 farms filed for bankruptcy this year, a 55% increase from the previous year. And these are not small farms. Unlike in India, where the average agricultural holding is less than two acres, the average American farm is closer to 500 acres with some going up to 10,000 acres and more, and they are a big source of funding and political support to the GOP. Some of them are now having misgivings are what they see as Trump blunders, including tariffing steel and aluminum that have increased their input costs, while a few Democrat-leaning farmers are gloating with “I told you so” messages.Sarah Taber, a North Carolina farmer and crop scientist who ran for office as a Democrat in 2024, and who runs a popular farm blog, says the turn of events was entirely predictable.” I’m always surprised when people say we were “lied to” about what Trump would do to us. We weren’t! US farmers knew Trump planned another trade war, and that it would hurt our businesses. And a lot of farmers just voted for him anyway,” she said in her podcast Farm to Taber.While American corn and soybean farmers are under stress, New Delhi is providing some relief to farmers growing tree nuts, having lifted tariffs on almonds and pistachios even as other major buyers like China and Turkey keep them on. India is now the largest buyer of “badam-pista” accounting for 70 percent and 90 percent of US exports of these two agricultural products. But that’s not enough to make MAGA folks happy. Reason: 90 percent of US treenuts are grown in California, a Democrat stronghold.
