MARYLAND - The US soybean harvest is underway and in rural Maryland, farmer Travis Hutchison cracks open a pod to show how a field is nearly dry enough for reaping.
But a decent yield is not enough to secure his income this year -- with China, once the biggest buyer of US soybean exports, halting orders in a trade row triggered by President Donald Trump's aggressive tariffs.
Soybean prices "are really depressed because of the trade war," Hutchison told AFP. His family tills 3,400 acres of soybeans, corn and other crops.
Hutchison is among American farmers -- a key support base for Trump -- reeling from the trade impasse.
The world's second-biggest economy in 2024 bought more than half the $24.5-billion in US soybean exports.
But exports to China have fallen by over 50 percent in value this year, and Chinese buyers have held off on new soybean orders from the US autumn harvest.
With lower demand, soybean prices are down about 40 percent from three years ago.
This comes as American soybeans have become pricier for Chinese buyers.
As Trump slapped tariffs on Chinese products in his second presidency, Beijing's counter-duties on US soybeans rose to 20 percent.
This makes them "prohibitively more expensive" than exports from South America, where US farmers face growing competition, said the American Soybean Association (ASA).
Last month, Argentina suspended its export tax on key crops like soybeans, making them more attractive to Chinese buyers too.
Trump vowed to tap tariff revenues to help US farmers but has not provided details, while prospects of a longer-term deal appear more distant than ever.
On Friday, Trump promised additional 100 percent tariffs targeting China and threatened to scrap talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping over Beijing's rare earth industry export curbs.
ASA president Caleb Ragland said the group had hoped top-level talks would restore soybean exports to China.
"These latest developments are deeply disappointing at a moment when soybean farmers are facing an ever-growing financial crisis," he said.
ASA chief economist Scott Gerlt warned the situation is especially harsh in Midwestern states like North and South Dakota.
There, the soybean industry is built up around exporting to the Pacific Northwest and subsequently to China.
They are hard-hit if they run out of storage and cannot ship their harvests out.