Trump helps out farmers battered by his trade policies. Is this what he meant when he promised “so much winning

It was a year ago, but who can forget then-candidate Trump’s loud boast? He was at a rally shouting that during his administration “we’re gonna win so much you may even get tired of winning and you’ll say please, please it’s so much winning we can’t take it anymore!” 

If you click on the link you’ll see a background of frenzied supporters going ape over the prospect of getting one win after another should Trump regain the presidency.

Now, nearly a year into his term, you have to wonder how many of those supporters are so exhausted by their winnings that they can’t take it anymore.

For sure I know one group of Americans who might be wondering when that “winning” thing is supposed to happen. 

That group would be composed of soybean farmers, of whom 13,000 operate in South Dakota.

The Chinese market for American soybeans until the first Trump administration consumed nearly 30% of our country’s soybean production. That figure fell to 11% in 2018 when Trump started his first trade war with China, then gradually rebounded during the Biden administration to 22% in 2024. 

So now that Trump has started another trade war with China, how are things going back on the soybean farm? Figures for this year are inconclusive, but the USDA reports that for the period ending last August 31, soybean sales to China are down 13% from the prior year. 

The result? As commodity market followers know, without the Chinese market being what it used to be, prices for soybeans have been low, trading in the $10-$11/bushel range for about the past year.

I think this is a permanent state of affairs, considering that during the past few years, China has been developing sources in South America. Brazilian farmers, seizing on the troubles of the U.S.-China relationship, have increased their soybean output by 40% in the last decade. Brazil is now the world’s largest producer of soybeans, and together with Argentina, produces 52% of the world’s soybeans.

The trend began during the first Trump administration and is only being aggravated by Trump’s hostility toward China during his second term in the White House. Supposedly, there’s been a recent thaw in our relations. China last September promised to buy substantial amounts of American soybeans this year, but so far sales haven’t come anywhere close to what was promised. 

In the interim, farmers, who are also faced with record-high input costs, are cash-strapped. President Trump just announced a $12 billion financial aid package for farmers affected by the president’s trade policies. As strongly as I support this gesture, I don’t think it’s nearly enough. Reuters reports that commodity crop farmers have lost $35-$44 billion this year.

Farm groups see the aid package as a temporary fix but expect more substantive, market-based policies as a real solution to the mess they’re in.

I think the real solution needs to start with an admission that Trump’s tariff-obsessed policies are a disaster. They’ve upended a functional status quo, turned farmers into government supplicants, and empowered South Americans to fill the trade vacuum created by Trump and his hostility to China and its trade practices.  

Trump constantly blames the Biden administration for the fix that farmers are in, but take a look at the number of farm bankruptcies that occurred during Trump’s first administration compared to bankruptcies during Biden’s term. Bankruptcies soared under Trump and fell sharply while Biden was in office.

There has to be something delusional about a president who believes that this is an example of how we’re winning, winning, winning. On the other hand, if this is indeed his idea of winning, what he said was true: “We can’t take it anymore.”

John Tsitrian is a businessman and writer from the Black Hills. He was a weekly columnist for the Rapid City Journal for 20 years. His articles and commentary have also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post and The Omaha World-Herald. Tsitrian served in the Marines for three years (1966-69), including a 13-month tour of duty as a radioman in Vietnam. Republish with permission.

Photo: South Dakota soybean farm, public domain, wikimedia commons

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