On Friday at 12:01 a.m the United States implemented 25 percent tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese goods, that implementation prompted China to retaliate with a 25 percent tariff of their own on $34 billion in American goods.
While many industries will be impacted by the trade war, two, soybean farming and lobstermen are already braced for a less than positive outcome.
Soybean farmers who, according to the American Soybean Association (ASA) statement that was published to their website on Friday, had already seen a soft farm market and prices already declining, and fear that now with China’s retaliatory tariffs that “Soybean farmers, whose crop represents 41 percent of the value of products on China’s tariff list, will feel the full effect.”
The President of ASA, John Heisdorffer a soybean farmer from Keota, Iowa explained in the published statement, “Soybeans are the top agriculture export for the United States, and China is the top market for purchasing those exports. The math is simple. You tax soybean exports at 25-percent, and you have serious damage to U.S. farmers.”
For the Maine lobster fisherman July marks the time of high season, but some fear, the newly imposed tariffs will “destabilize the state’s leading industry, NBC News spoke with Tom Adams CEO of Maine Coast, a large lobster distribution company that works with more than 100 local lobstermen and fishing co-ops.
Adams explained, that 60 percent of its lobsters are exported to twenty-nine foreign countries, twenty percent of his exports go to China.
One lobsterman, Cyrus Sleeper said that Lobster to the community in Maine is like coal in a coal mining town, “It means everything. Families can put clothes on their kids, feed themselves.” Sleeper goes on to say that, “We’ve been fishing more lobsters than ever and China was absorbing the product. We had a lot of hope for the future of the market.”
Another distributor Mark Murrell said, “I’m hopeful that what he’s doing is going to end up in the long run being great for everyone,” asked if he was confident that it might work out great for everyone Murrell replied, “Not very.”
On Saturday Politico reported that China did make a major exemption for Chinese garment and footwear, meaning the “clothing industry looks likely to be left unscathed.”
This allows Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s daughter and adviser, the ability to continue to ship in her apparel and shoes.
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