Minnesota farmers are on brink of disaster as China hits back with US soybean boycott — can South America really ‘feed all their needs’ forever?

Last year, China purchased more than $12.8 billion worth of U.S. soybeans [1]. But since May, it hasn’t bought a single bushel — a retaliatory move in the Trump administration’s ongoing trade war.

The Trump administration has floated $10 billion to $15 billion in aid to help struggling farmers, but the announcement remains on hold amid the government shutdown [2]. On Truth Social last week, Trump said he plans to meet with the Chinese president soon, adding that “soybeans will be a major topic of discussion [3].”

“It's really nerve wracking,” Mackenthun told PBS News’ Megan Thompson [4]. “The looming tariffs over us have made it just difficult to predict anything.”

Betting on a rebound

Across Minnesota’s farm belt, soybean growers like Mackenthun are facing tough choices as global demand cools and prices slide. For years, Mackenthun relied on patience to boost his profits, storing his soybeans in bins and waiting for the market to rise. But this season, the outlook felt too uncertain. Instead of holding on, he sold his crop immediately to the local grain elevator, hoping to lock in a reasonable price before things got worse.

“So on that load I had 371 bushels of soybeans [and] got paid $9.13 a bushel. It's a dollar below what I got for most of my beans last year,” he said.

According to Ed Usset, a grain market economist at the University of Minnesota, this is typically the peak season for U.S. soybean exports, with China as the main buyer. Over the past decade, the country has imported roughly a billion bushels of soybeans from the United States each year.

Mackenthun says the ongoing trade disputes feel like déjà vu from 2018, when tariffs sent soybean prices tumbling to about $8 a bushel. With fertilizer and equipment costs continuing to rise, he estimates he’s losing close to $90,000 on his soybean crop this season.

Fellow farmer Bob Lindeman is taking the opposite approach. While Mackenthun chose to sell early, Lindeman is holding on to most of his harvest, betting that prices will bounce back once tensions ease and global trade steadies.

“It's for sure a risk. You know, putting them in the market could go down. I'm hoping that we can get some of these tariffs taken care of,” Lindeman told PBS News.

With limited storage on his own property, Lindeman is paying a neighbor to hold his soybeans, another added cost in a year when every dollar counts. If the market doesn’t rebound soon, he says he may have to rely on a federal loan for the first time in more than ten years just to keep his operation running.

A market stuck in limbo

While the two farmers are taking different approaches, experts say neither option comes without risk. Usset says farmers are operating under immense uncertainty.