The U.S. exports billions of dollars worth of agricultural products each year — things like soybeans, corn and pork. And over the last month, these exports have been caught up in a trade war. U.S. farmers have been collateral damage in a trade war before. In 2018, President Trump put tariffs on a bunch of Chinese products including flatscreen TVs, medical devices and batteries. But China matched those tariffs with their own retaliatory tariffs. They put tariffs on a lot of U.S. agricultural products they'd been buying, like soybeans, sorghum, and livestock. That choice looked strategic. Hitting these products with tariffs hurt Trump's voter base and might help China in a negotiation. And in some cases, China could find affordable alternative options from other countries.Today on the show: what happened in 2018, how the government prevented some U.S. farms from going bankrupt, and what was lost even after the trade war ended.This episode was produced by Sylvie Douglis and edited by Jess Jiang. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez and fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.Listen free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy
What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war?
This is Planet Money from NPR. Every time I've called up LaVon and Craig Griffune, they've been busy with grandparent chores. Well, we have two babies today.
A two-year-old and a one-year-old.
Oh my gosh. Are you guys Iowa's best grandparents?
I don't think so.
The tiredest ones, probably.
A little over a week ago, on May 5th, LaVon and Craig were babysitting two of their six granddaughters.
My garden's right by our chicken pen, and I just park the girls in their stroller, and they will watch chickens for an hour while I garden. It's pretty repetitious, but they watch them.
Levon and Craig are farmers. Craig is the fifth generation to live on this family farm. It's pretty big, 1,100 plus acres just north of Des Moines in Iowa. And in addition to raising chickens, they have pigs and sheep and turkeys and also something called limousine cattle.
It's a French breed of cattle.
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