May 8, 2019 - Economy

U.S. farmers are stuck in a bad version of "Groundhog Day"

Data: Macrotrends; Chart: Axios Visuals
Data: Macrotrends; Chart: Axios Visuals

Soybean prices on Tuesday fell to their lowest since July, when farmers saw the lowest prices since 2008. Prices have again nosedived after President Trump reignited the trade war with China, saying he would impose 25% tariffs on Chinese goods. China is expected to respond in kind.

The big picture: Soybeans had already seen significant stockpiling after last year's trade war flare-up and are now facing the spread of African swine flu and rainy weather across much of the U.S.

Farmers are getting hit on multiple fronts, Scott Irwin, an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, told Bloomberg.

  • It's "like a bad version of the movie 'Groundhog Day' for the U.S. farmer," he said.

Go deeper: Trump's China trade war forces U.S. soybeans to take costly detour

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