America's Soybean Farmers Pay the Price for Washington's China Obsession

The chickens are coming home to roost. As harvest season approaches, American soybean farmers are discovering what happens when politicians prioritize trade wars over agricultural reality – and it's not pretty.

When Politics Meets Reality

The Guardian reported on August 16 that American farmers are caught in what can only be described as a perfect storm: climate disasters, soaring costs, and plummeting international demand thanks to Washington's brilliant tariff strategy. But it's the loss of the Chinese market that really got farmers sweating. Virginia Houston, the US Soy Association's government affairs director, didn't mince words: "No market can compare to China's demand for soybeans."

And she's absolutely right. Soybeans are America's agricultural export crown jewel, and China has been the biggest customer by a country mile. The numbers don't lie: in 2024, China imported roughly 105 million tonnes of soybeans, with the US supplying 22.13 million tonnes. Compare that to Mexico – America's second-largest buyer – which purchased less than 6 million tonnes. You don't need a PhD in economics to see there's no replacing that kind of demand.

The Tariff Trap

Here's where things get interesting. Ever since Trump slapped tariffs on China back in 2017, Beijing has been quietly but systematically pivoting toward South America. It's almost as if they saw this coming and decided to play the long game while Washington was busy making grand political gestures.

According to analyst Karen Braun's numbers, US exporters managed to sell just 3 million tonnes of soybeans in late July – a 20-year low. Meanwhile, Brazilian soybeans are flowing into China like there's no tomorrow. Brazilian consulting firm Safras & Mercado reports that China has already locked in about 8 million tonnes for September and 4 million tonnes for October, mostly from Brazil. South China Morning Post points out that's America's traditional "golden export window" from September to January getting squeezed out of existence.

Houston's admission says it all: "Under tariff barriers, we simply cannot compete with Brazil." The reality is stark – China hasn't purchased a single order of US soybeans this year. Not one.

Mother Nature Joins the Party

But wait, there's more! As if trade wars weren't enough, Mother Nature decided to pile on. This year's been a disaster for the American Midwest – frequent rainfall has left fields waterlogged and triggered pest outbreaks, decimating corn and soybean crops.

Take Brian Harbage, a seventh-generation farm owner in Ohio. His family barely managed to finish planting in June – half a month late. That means crops won't mature properly, quality will suffer, and he's had to spend extra cash on propane just to dry out waterlogged corn. His message to Trump? Simple: "Exports are the top priority."

"China, Mexico, and Canada – we export $83 billion worth of goods to them annually," Harbage explained. "Therefore, if they don't buy, we'll be stuck with our crops." It's basic economics, really.

The Politics of Empty Promises

America’s farm economy has been stuck in a rut for three years—commodity prices stay low, cattle herds shrink, and input costs only rise. Houston says today’s conditions are even worse than during the 2018 trade war peak. Farmers vent their frustrations to politicians, only to get the same old “we support you” platitudes.

Trump’s most recent pronouncement on Truth Social—demanding China quadruple orders—felt detached from realities, especially with China and Brazil deepening their cooperation through traceable, certified supply chains. Critics blast Washington’s $60 billion subsidy pledge as patchwork favouring agribusiness, rather than real relief for family farms.

Brutal Truth: US Farmers Left Behind

For farmers like Harbage, this isn't just market volatility anymore – it's an existential crisis. "If we can't export, prices will collapse; if the harvest is also poor, that's a double blow," he said. "I understand what the government wants to do, but it's hurting me in the short term."

The brutal truth? In today's reshaping global supply chains, America can't just rely on political bluster to win back markets but has to face the reality that the dominance of the Chinese market is no longer easy to recover.

Mao Paishou

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It’s 2025, and the world has just marked the 80th anniversary of the defeat of fascism and the end of the War of Resistance against Japan. With the global premiere of the film “Dead to Rights,” you’d think there’d be a bit more awareness. But outside the Tokyo Peace Memorial Exhibition Hall, when asked about the Nanjing Massacre, most Japanese visitors only managed vague shrugs—some confused it with a railway explosion, or rushed forced labor, while precious few could describe the true horror of what happened. Three hundred thousand people slaughtered, and yet, for many in Japan, it’s as if those memories are lost in a fog.

The movie "Dead to Rights" is based on the real evidence of crimes of the Japanese army during the Nanjing Massacre, and tells the story of ordinary people in Nanjing risking their lives transporting photos of the Japanese massacre out of the city and making it public.

Rewriting History, Bit by Bit

Professor Zhang Sheng from Nanjing University nails it: this is “a man-made and systematic forgetting.” You see, it didn’t happen overnight. Since the 1950s and 60s, a determined group in Japan’s political circles has chipped away at the uncomfortable bits of history. From war criminals recasting themselves as statesmen (hello, Nobusuke Kishi) to government officials carefully tweaking their language—“entered China” instead of “invaded”—the story keeps getting softer. Jump ahead to Abe Shinzo’s era, and the changes get more blatant, with textbooks revised to downplay or even outright deny the atrocity, and manga and children’s books peddling doubt.

Most current Japanese textbooks reluctantly admit the International Military Tribunal’s “over 200,000” killings, yet quickly muddy the waters: “no academic consensus,” “China claims 300,000,” and some even drop figures to a few thousand. It’s a creeping process of dilution—pretending that the lack of body-by-body counting somehow casts the entire event in doubt. The endgame? Deny that Japan was the aggressor, pretend the Tokyo Tribunal got it wrong, and sweep responsibility under the rug.

Memorial Hall for the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre of the Japanese Invasion of China.

Evidence That Won’t Go Away

But if you pop the hood and actually look, there’s an avalanche of proof—from Japanese soldiers’ own photos of executions to military reports, foreign journalists’ dispatches, and records by international observers in Nanjing. Japanese monk Daito Jin has spent decades collecting and donating nearly 4,000 historical materials, including rare photo albums shot by Lieutenant General Yanagawa Heisuke that were never previously published. Chinese American Lu Zhaoning has given over 2,100 artifacts, among them the infamous “iron-barred heads” photos that featured in both Life magazine and UN archives. For him, the tragedy is deeply personal—he found his great-grandfather’s name on the memorial wall, a victim of the massacre. “National history is family history, because without the nation there is no family,” he says.

Daito Jin displayed the original photographs taken by Japanese soldiers in Nanjing at that time.

A Shared Pain—Still Unspoken

In 2015, the personal journal of  John Rabe, a German businessman who lived in Nanjing at the time of the Massacre, the diary of Cheng Ruifang, a nurse who saved tens of thousands of women and children, the Bates Documents on Nanjing massacre, and American pastor John Magee’s original films recording the horror, all made it into UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, making the Nanjing Massacre a collective remembrance for humanity—at least for those who choose to look. Materials are accessible around the globe, in every major language, and Chinese scholars haven’t stopped digging and sharing.

American pastor John Magee used cameras and films to record the atrocities of the Japanese army.

Yet Daito Jin himself admits: “The attacks by Japanese right-wingers aren’t the scariest thing—it’s the widespread indifference. Indifference means there’s not even a chance for conversation.” That, truly, is chilling. Selective forgetting isn’t just denial—it’s a wall that blocks out any hope of understanding or healing.

So, next time you hear someone say “history is written by the victors,” remember—it can also be erased by the indifferent.