By Senator Amy Klobuchar
Right now, rural America is facing a crisis of uncertainty.
In Minnesota and across the country, farmers are having trouble making ends meet amid low commodity prices and increasing costs, and farm financial conditions are deteriorating. Farmer loan repayment rates continue to decline in Minnesota and across the Midwest, and small farm bankruptcies have reached a five-year high.
Why? Our farmers can’t offset the toll the administration’s tariffs are taking on the rural economy.
As I visited family farmers across western and southern Minnesota last month they told me just how much the tariffs were hurting them. As one farmer said, this moment is a “perfect storm of ugly.”
The administration’s tariffs are increasing critical input costs – with fertilizer prices up $100 per ton and some farm machinery and equipment parts up 10% – at the same time that retaliatory tariffs are drying up key export markets. It’s even harder for our family farms to survive.
There’s no doubt that our adversaries like China use trade to manipulate markets and hurt American workers. That’s why I support targeted tariffs like those used by the previous Trump, Biden and Obama administrations to counter China’s steel dumping. But across-the-board tariffs – especially those placed on our neighbors and partners – only raise costs for consumers, hurt small businesses and farmers, and threaten jobs.
This administration’s across-the-board tariffs are damaging international markets that farmers have spent decades building. Around 20% of all U.S. agricultural products are typically sold abroad. Minnesotan farmers export even more – more than one third of our agricultural production, making our state the fourth largest for agricultural exports – but those markets are being put at risk. The first three countries the president targeted with tariffs – Mexico, Canada and China – are our top three agricultural export markets and account for half of all U.S. agricultural exports.
For example, China has not purchased a single bushel of the 2025 soybean crop so far this year, compared to more than 250 million bushels at this time last year. This problem has only been made worse by competitors like Argentina that have undercut our farmers to sell soybeans to China. Unfortunately, the administration is working to give Argentina $40 billion in aid instead of pushing them to stop undermining our farmers.
The impact of tariffs on markets for farmers extends well beyond soybeans. Pork, beef, and fresh fruit and vegetable exports are all falling – leaving farmers without valuable markets to sell their crops.
Despite the effects on our producers, the administration has doubled down on these tariffs. And while our farmers need help now, short-term solutions that fail to address the long-term impact on farmers’ access to international markets are just a band-aid. Ultimately, farmers want trade, not aid.
The only way to restore the export markets that farmers have spent decades building is to reverse these across-the-board tariffs. That needs to happen before lasting damage is done to our relationships with our trading partners.
During the trade war in the president’s first term, U.S. agriculture suffered $27 billion in losses. We never fully recovered.
That’s why I am leading the fight in Congress to overturn these across-the-board tariffs and give our farmers the certainty they need in the long-term.
Last month, 15 senators – including three Republicans – joined me to reintroduce our bill to undo President Trump’s tariffs on Canadian imports. I’ve also joined a bipartisan group of 14 senators – seven Republicans, led by Senator Chuck Grassley, and seven Democrats – to introduce legislation that would reassert Congress’ constitutional authority to set tariffs. These bills are the first steps we need to take to address the mounting costs facing our farmers and restore some certainty to our trade policy.
We must work across the aisle to end this crisis of uncertainty. I will work with anyone to restore our farmers’ markets to give them one less reason to worry about their balance books so they can focus on continuing to feed and fuel the world.
Anonymous says
The link to the article you cite, published by the Tennessean can be viewed by those who can clear the paywall here: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/politics/2025/11/04/tennessee-soybean-farming-trump-tariff-deal-china/87037787007/?gnt-cfr=1&gca-cat=p&gca-uir=false&gca-epti=undefined&gca-ft=0&gca-ds=sophi
What can be accessed prior to encountering the paywall reads as follows…
Tennessee soybean farmers are cautiously optimistic that China will begin buying U.S. soybeans again, after President Donald Trump announced cuts to U.S. tariffs on China after meeting with President Xi Jinping Oct. 30. The Trump Administration announced that China has agreed to resume buying American-grown soybeans.
Soybeans are the top commodity grown in Tennessee, based on cash receipts, and China is Tennessee’s largest soybean export recipient. Farmers planted more than 1.75 million acres of soybeans in Tennessee this year, which is more than any other row crop in the state.
A key portion of that first sentence is “cautiously optimistic”, which stands in contrast to the segment of the posting on Truth Social which reads, in part, .“Our Farmers will be very happy! In fact, as I said once before during my first Administration, Farmers should immediately go out and buy more land and larger tractors,”
Given that guidance, and your “happy news”, SE Minnesota farmers will surely buy up as much land as possible and order more tractors. There is surely a long line standing outside the area’s implement dealers to secure a place on the waiting list.
Surely, if there are any farmers interested in selling their farms, Mr. Boyum would gladly pay their asking price, based upon the certainty that demand for farm land will explode and he could reap significant profits?
Matters, however, do not seem quite so simple…
The preceding can be found in an article published by Barron’s, as reprinted on the MSN website: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/economy/trump-s-china-soybean-deal-is-less-than-it-appears/ar-AA1PvLvo
A more recent update published by the Associated Press on November 14, 2025, paints a considerably less rosy outlook: https://apnews.com/article/china-trump-xi-soybean-farmers-brazil-72ded79cdd71ce61e93337b8984e6f69?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
The White House recently made an announcement that should result resounding cheers by SE Minnesota’s beef farmers, i.e., dropping tariffs on Argentinian beef, thereby increasing supply and reducing prices that U. S. farmers will receive for their products. Surely, this is a sacrifice they’ll be glad to make? Here’s the link to that story, published on November 14, 2025, by U. S. News & World Report: https://money.usnews.com/investing/news/articles/2025-11-14/trump-cuts-tariffs-on-beef-coffee-and-other-foods-as-inflation-concerns-mount
An announcement from the White House does not amount to a done deal. Unless I’ve missed something, Mexico was going to pay for the wall running along the entire southern border of the United States. To my knowledge, that has not happened yet, however, that topic seems to have fallen off the radar.
Surely, many of the FCJ readers are still waiting to receive the $5,000 DOGE dividend check, so that they can repay the loan that they took out based upon that announcement. Perhaps they still believe that those checks will soon “be in the mail.”
Of course, stories like this do serve a crucial purpose for the White House, which is to devote paper and ink to stories that make no mention of the Epstein files.
Gerald J. Boyum says
To the Editor,
It looks like Trump is already doing that. From “Tennessee soybean farmers call Trump’s China deal ‘good start for …trade’ by Vivian Jones, Nov. 4, 2025. China has agreed to resume buying American-grown soybeans again after Trump announced cuts to U.S. tariffs. Already, soybean exports have jumped by $20 to $30 per metric ton this week. This would have never happened in the time frame that it did if the authority to use tariffs is removed from the U.S. Chief Executive Officer who is one person directly accountable to “we the people”.
1. Key reasons for implementing tariffs:
– Protection of Domestic Industries. Tariffs make imported goods more expensive, which encourages consumers to buy locally produced goods.
– Tariffs serve as source of income for governments.
– Political Leverage. Tariffs can be used in trade negotiations or political disputes.
– National Security. Certain industries, such as defense or technology, may be protected by tariffs to ensure that a country does not become threatened by foreign advances.
– Counteracting “dumping”, a practice where foreign companies sell products at artificially low prices to drive competitors out.
2. In summary, tariffs are a strategic tool used by governments to achieve various economic and political objectives.
Gerald J. Boyum
2462 Dallman Ln
Rochester, MN 55904