Trade war fallout: Soybean prices plunge to a 10-year low

[blue-wave]

Source: money.cnn.com

The price of a bushel slid to $8.55 on Wednesday, a 13% decline since the beginning of the year. Prices are falling as a result of the escalating trade war between the United States and China.

The United States imposed a 25% tariff last week on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods. China responded with a tariff on American goods worth an equal amount, including soybeans.

China is the world's largest buyer of American soybeans. Farmers in the United States sell about a third of their harvest there. Soybeans are used both for cooking and for feeding livestock.

Read more: https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/11/news/economy/soybean-prices/index.html

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Hey Pence, why don't you let 'em know in Iowa today how "great" all this is!!

[louis c]

1. Hey Trump, Another New Record!!!! (NT)

[hibbing]

2. Soy is big in my state n/t

[Botany]

3. "I am fighting for a level playing field for our farmers, and will win!"* D Trump

Tell that to the sorghum farmers in Kansas.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-17/chinese-sorghum-tariffs-will-hit-hard-in-trump-friendly-kansas

Sorghum growers aren’t so lucky. On Tuesday, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced it would impose a 178.6 percent duty on sorghum imports from the U.S. that will take effect almost immediately. The news puts an additional Trump-friendly state (and Republican leader) squarely in the crosshairs: Kansas is the largest sorghum producer in the U.S., and its senior senator, Pat Roberts, chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee.

“It’s extremely frustrating and very disappointing,” says Jesse McCurry, executive director of the Kansas Grain Sorghum Commission. “Half of Kansas sorghum or more was going to China, and that probably stops, at least for now.”
The new Chinese measure is a response to the tariffs Trump slapped on solar panels and washing machines earlier this year. China began a probe of sorghum imports in early February, shortly after Trump’s announcement. “We knew this was hanging over our heads,” says Kurt Winter, a sorghum farmer in Sedgwick County, Kansas, just outside Wichita. “But when we heard the news this morning, it was still just devastating to us. It’s really going to put the hammer to our price prospects.”
Trump’s campaign-trail protectionism and attacks on China were a big part of his appeal to Republican voters in 2016. But as he’s begun implementing those policies as president, the economic fallout has landed heavily on his own voters. Hardest hit by the new tariffs will be Roberts’s old congressional district (KS-01), known as “The Big First” for its sprawling, agriculture-intensive acreage. In the last election, Kansas’s first district voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton by 45 points.

* https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-seeks-to-reassure-anxious-farmers-being-hurt-by-his-trade-war-with-china/2018/07/11/11f0b48a-8509-11e8-9e80-403a221946a7_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0d94882edfe2

[blue-wave]

5. Wow! That's devastating!!!

Hopefully they finally wake up and see the err of their ways.

[Hav]

20. The leveling playing field now seems to be the competition with Russia...

with China making the switch to them. I don't understand why those who depend so much on trade with other nations favor protectionism. Doesn't look as if they thought that through.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. Looking like we are seeing

the Futures Soybean Prices are at or below replacement costs. Here is something most folks do not know,the price of 8.55 is a price at a Future day in time,and the real ouch is the Cash price paid at the Elevator at this moment. That price can be as much as a dollar a bushel less the the futures price.

What I am watching for and listening for is this,we will be seeing the Bean Harvest start in the next two to three weeks in what is called the Southern Soybean belt. Kentucky,southern Indiana,Tennessee,Arkansas,Georgia,and east Texas. My best guess is Beans drop to 5-6 dollars a bushel cash basis. And by September first,the Bankers will be calling loans.

[blue-wave]

8. Thanks for the insight

Please post when the harvest starts to come in.

[dalton99a]

9. There will be a bailout for them.

[progressoid]

11. Yep. And all those republican farmers who bitch about govt hand-outs to everyone else will

will gladly take their govt hand-out.

[Wellstone ruled]

12. Could be to the tune of 35 Billion.

Heard 3 billion then the flood gates opened. It is all about buying their votes.

Going to get interesting next week.

[dalton99a]

13. Yep, anything and everything to salvage the midterms

[Wellstone ruled]

17. Have a aquaintance who

runs close to 5k acres of Corn and Beans. Since fall Harvest,he has sold only two loads of Beans and is not sleeping very good at this time. Fortunate for him,he has a long term Corn Contract with the local Ethenol Plant that is keeping and maintaining his operating loan at this time. But,the lump payment is not to far off and he is understandably nervous.

Hunch there are hundreds in the same sinking boat. And sad to say,they bought the GOP bullshit hook line and sinker.

[lamsmy]

30. Your acquaintance

Your friend has been counting on bailouts, in one form or another, for the last 30 years. Corn has never made sense in the huge volumes it is produced in the US. The same goes for dairy.

In both sectors vast over-investment has led to an endless cycle of low prices leading to farm failures leading to government subsidies leading to increased investment by those hoping to take advantage of subsidies, leading to overproduction, leading to low prices... repeat ad museum.

Not only do these bailouts provide a false sense of security to farmers, they stop them from facing the facts of life, and rethink their business model.

Worse, this is ridiculously expensive for American tax payers. If 30 years ago the government had had the courage to pay for those farmers to switch crops or rethink the land use altogether, then the US agriculture would not be in the mess it finds itself today.

[Wellstone ruled]

31. Oh yes this has been a

sore spot between us for years. Always rag on him about getting that Brown Envelope in the mail box on the first and fifteenth of the month.

Sad to say,he is one of the few third and fourth generation of Cash Croppers who really cares about his land and does everything possible to protect the environment.

Remember,it was during the Eisenhower administration when things started to spiral out of control with the Soil Bank Program run by Ezra Taft Benson. And the present Farm Bill is just another Republican idea to save their Rural Votes just like 1950's.

[blue-wave]

18. Well gee

How's that for good old fashioned "fiscal conservatism?" Create the crisis and then balloon the national debt through the necessity of a bailout.

Just gotta love it, huh?

[Wellstone ruled]

22. This is the last gasp of the

so called Republican Party. If the polling is even close to accurate,the Giant has awaken and the Blue Wave is going to once and for all,drown the Rethugs.


Usually check what is called the "Car Loading Index" from time to time,that gives you the real time story as to Farm Grain sales via the Rail Roads. Going to explore the Rail Road Data base latter in the day,should be darn interesting.

[roamer65]

33. We need to remove all agricultural subsidies.

Gone. Period.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

15. This past week I read soybeans down to $7.70 bushel...

... so I surmise that is the cash price at the elevators at this/that time. I didn't watch the local morning agriculture shows the past week. One of the stations that broadcasts it to me over the air is Sinclair managed KMEG/CBS. So I am not to worried about moving my UHF antenna...


Also, Sinclair runs Comet on their 14.3 sub channel. And after two years, still no closed captions, the FCC is not enforcing things.

[Wellstone ruled]

27. And most of Rural America gets their info from Sinclair Radio and TV.

[Javaman]

25. sounds just like 1931 or 32. nt

[dalton99a]

6. They voted for Trump and his trade war.

[turbinetree]

7. And in Arkansas.................they have this idiot.............and he is idiot................

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/09/gop-arkansas-gov-asa-hutchinson-sticks-with-trump-on-china-trade-war.html


* GOP Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson gives “confidence and latitude” to President Trump in the China trade war.

* “But we feel it’s appropriate to say there is a point that you should not squeeze us further,” Hutchinson says.

* Hutchinson urges a quick resolution for the sake of the nearly 48,000 family owned farms in his state

[sandensea]

10. Under Obama (whom soy farmers hated), soy exports boomed from 34 m tons to 58 m tons.

Under Cheeto, who soy farmers mostly adore, guess where they'll end up: probably back to 34 m tons - at best.

China takes up 60% of our soy exports.

Thanks a lot, Cheeto.

[onecaliberal]

14. Winnnnnnnning.....

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

16. W-I-N-N-I-N-G.....But I agree with the posts above. there will be massive bailouts to salvage

this abomination in the White House and the midterms. And the morons will vote for them like the lemmings that they are.

[atreides1]

19. I disagree!

The Freedom Caucus will fight any bailout, and Trump will only support a bailout if he gets all of the money for his wall!

Besides, if the family farmers can't make their payments...it means that corporate farms will buy them out...and they in turn will make larger donations to Republicans running for re-election!

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

21. I think the bailout idea will come from him (not him per se but the last ghoul left in the room

advising him that day). As for the Doofus Caucus they'll talk shit for a minute. And may even vote against it. But who's to say that they won't go to some Democrats in those states to offset some of the troglodyte faction's opposition. Of course I could be totally wrong. But I imagine the 'Pukes will pull out all the stops in order to maintain their majorities.

[Canoe52]

23. +1 nt

[NickB79]

34. If so, I will rub it in my family's faces until the day I die

Conservative corn and soy farmers who bitch about welfare queens every chance they get.

Let's see how they like it when they're reminded for years to come how they had to suck the government teat to stay alive.

[Gothmog]

24. Trump's trade war is hitting his base

[SWBTATTReg]

26. I imagine in Indiania, Pence's old state, that things aren't doing too well either? nt

[workinclasszero]

28. Womp womp GOP farmers

Democrats warned you what the con man would do, but her emails.....

See you at auction when Trump's billionaire pals snap up your family farms for a pittance...SUCKERS!

[Meadowoak]

29. USA, USA, USA!

[roamer65]

32. Good. I hope they hit $5/bushel.

[paleotn]

35. Couldn't happen

to nicer assholes. You bought it, you own it, magats!