At the end of October, the Trump administration proudly announced that it struck a deal with China to de-escalate the trade war Trump started earlier this year, which has hit American farmers especially hard. It includes a commitment from China to resume buying U.S. soybeans after not doing so since May when trade tensions between the two countries exploded.
But even with tariffs dropping again, Arkansas row crop farmers are still facing a bleak economic outlook.
After Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs back in April, U.S. taxes on goods imported from China skyrocketed over 100% in many cases. China responded with tariffs of its own, and by hitting the U.S. on the two trade issues where it hurts the most: farm commodities and critical minerals.
While the United States imports far more goods from China than vice versa, the U.S. does sell a great deal of soybeans to China, primarily for livestock feed. Soybeans are Arkansas farmers’ largest crop, with growers — primarily in the Delta — growing over 3 million acres annually for export to China and Europe, along with domestic markets. China responded to Trump’s tariffs by refusing to buy American soybeans — a major pain point for an administration that is very popular in rural areas and farm country.
China’ freezing out U.S. soybeans isn’t the only problem facing Arkansas farmers. Low prices for crops, high costs of essential inputs like fertilizer and seed, and increasing global competition have left American row crop farmers facing increasing economic pressures. And Congress has yet to meaningfully update the farm safety net since it expired in 2023, though.
Advocates for Arkansas farmers have been saying for months that hundreds of Arkansas farms will go out of business in the coming months if something isn’t done. They’ve advocated for Congress and the Trump administration to use some of the tariff revenue the government has collected to bail out row crop farmers, as was done under the first Trump administration.
According to most national media outlets, Trump was forced back to the negotiating table with China not because of soybeans but because of rare earth minerals, which are essential for many manufactured products in U.S., from fighter jets and submarines to electric vehicles, cellphones, wind turbines and solar panels. China cut off exports of rare earth minerals amid the trade war.
On Oct. 30, Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping for over an hour to iron out a reduction in tariffs so China would resume purchasing soybeans from American farmers and let the critical minerals flow back into American markets. Basically, the Trump administration rolled the trade relationship with China back to square one, before the “Liberation Day” tariffs were announced in April, even while touting the deal as “a massive victory.”
In a press release, the Trump administration said China committed to buying 12 million metric tons of soybeans in 2025 and another 25 million metric tons in 2026, 2027, and 2028.
But China bought an average of 28 million tons of soybeans between 2020 and 2024, and in earlier years China bought even more. Since the trade war in Trump’s first term, China has increasingly turned to importing soybeans from Argentina and Brazil instead of the U.S.
Trump’s deal gives Arkansas soybean farmers access again to a market they need to stay afloat. But in the long term, they will be just as dependent on a shrinking Chinese market as before — a market that has proven it can disappear and cause economic pain overnight.
While China will buy more soybeans from Arkansas farmers this year, farm income is still projected to decline by 8% this year as cash receipts from crops fall by 13%, according to the University of Missouri Rural and Farm Finance Policy Analysis Center. According to that same report, crop sales aren’t projected to do much better in 2026, though overall income is projected to stabilize.