U.S. tariffs placed on soybeans could cost farmers in Iowa up to $624 million, the Des Moines Register warned readers Saturday.
The Trump administration on Friday announced plans to impose 25% tariffs on Chinese products starting July 6, to which the Chinese government said it would follow through on plans to levy tariffs on a range of American farm goods including corn and soybeans.
Mexico, too, raised the prospects of taxes against the same farm products if Trump escalates a trade spat, officials told Reuters this week.
The U.S. exports about $14 billion worth of soybeans to China, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Iowa is the nation’s second-largest soybean grower, per the Register.
The American Soybean Association, which represents more than 300,000 soybean farmers, appealed to Congress last week to halt trade tariffs.
"Any tariff or tax put in place will have a significant impact, not only to the U.S. soybean market but to Iowa's, because we're such a large producer," Chad Hart, an Iowa State University economist, told the Register.
Since the U.S.-China trade dispute started in March, U.S. soybean prices have fallen about 12 percent.
"This is not the news farmers wanted to see, especially with the struggles we've had … over the past four or five years," Hart said.
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