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Caleb Ragland is exactly the kind of voter Donald Trump loves to tout, a Kentucky soybean farmer who backed him in 2016, 2020, and 2024. But on Friday, Ragland sounded nothing like a partisan cheerleader. In a NewsNation appearance, he warned that thousands of farms could go under if Trump’s trade war keeps choking off their biggest customer, and he grimly predicted a rise in bankruptcies, even suicides, if relief or a deal does not materialize soon. Ragland’s basic case is brutally simple, as Soybeans are America’s largest agricultural export, and the global market runs through China. Over the last five marketing years, China has purchased an average of 61 percent of the world’s traded soybean supplies, more than the rest of the world combined. When Beijing steps away, U.S. farmers are left with bins full of beans and nowhere near enough buyers. That is not campaign rhetoric; it is trade math backed by the American Soybean Association and other industry trackers. For the first time in more than two decades, Chinese importers had not booked a single cargo from the autumn U.S. crop by early October, a stunning break from the seasonal pattern that typically sees China scoop up a large chunk of U.S. supplies ahead of harvest. Prices are weak, costs for fuel and fertilizer are high, and farmers are storing product on hope, not contracts. Alternative markets are tiny by comparison, and the growing uncertainty is eating into rural America’s confidence. Ragland has been blunt about what that means on the ground. In a personal essay this fall, he pleaded with Trump to end the trade war, writing that “The tariffs on China could put us out of business by 2027,” and warning that “All our blood, sweat, and toil could vanish with the stroke of a pen.” Those are not the words of a political operative; they are the worries of a working grower who also happens to lead the American Soybean Association. The supply side is not the only problem. The demand side is reorganizing without the United States. China continues to import massive volumes of soybeans, but it is leaning harder on Brazil, which has pumped out record crops and increasingly dominates Chinese purchase books. In 2024, China imported a record 105 million metric tons of soybeans, with the bulk sourced from Brazil, and Beijing keeps smoothing the way for those purchases. That shift compounds the pain in U.S. counties where soy checks pay the bills and keep main streets alive. Ragland praised some Trump policies on taxes, regulation, and biofuels, then said the quiet part out loud, that none of it matters if farmers cannot sell their crop. He argued that trade must be part of any fix, because without real buyers, the numbers do not pencil out. His on-air message tracks with what farm groups have said for months, that temporary aid and scattered new markets cannot replace a suspended relationship with the world’s dominant soybean buyer. Farm country is carrying more debt, equipment purchases are being delayed, and the lines between a bad year and a breaking point are getting blurred. Ragland’s stark prediction about bankruptcies, even suicides, is not a throwaway line; it is a reflection of how fragile these operations can be when prices sag and buyers vanish. Whether Washington can reverse that spiral is an open question. What is not in doubt is the scale of the risk if Trump’s trade war drags on.
