LIMA, Ohio (WLIO) — Ohio is the seventh-largest soybean exporter in the country, but with the threat of tariffs looming in trade relations with China, farmers are expressing their concerns to Congress.
Ohio soybean producers met with Congressman Bob Latta to share their concerns about the potential impact of a trade war on their exports.
As planting season approaches, soybean farmers are already seeing low prices for their crops. With ongoing discussions of tariffs, prices could drop even further if countries like China choose to purchase soybeans from other nations instead of the United States. Ohio soybean producers met with Congressman Bob Latta to share their concerns about the potential impact of a trade war on their exports.
“You look across the state of Ohio, the number of this out there, is about every third row of soybeans in Ohio go to China, and in our area, it's almost every other row. So, that you know that's a big, big number for them. China gets about 55% of their beans from Brazil and 33% from the United States. But anything that starts reducing that's going to hurt American farmers out there. So, we want to keep our markets out there, because we don't want to all of a sudden have somebody else steps in and take that away from us,” said Rep. Bob Latta, (R-Ohio), 5th District.
President Trump has delayed the implementation of tariffs to give countries more time to negotiate a potential trade deal in the future.
