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Ag looks for ‘certainty’ out of Trump-Xi meeting

An Iowa State University ag economist hopes some “certainty” comes out of the upcoming meeting between the presidents of the U.S. and China.

ISU ag economist Chad Hart says there’s a lot riding on that meeting

“Tell us whether these tariffs are going to be here long-term or not,” Hart says. “Anything that sort of causes them to look like ‘on-again, off-again’ just puts us where we can’t plan for what does this business need to look like, as we look out over the next year to 18 months.”

Hart says positive news from that meeting would probably give the soybean market a boost, but he says the trade war will have a long tail.

“When I’m looking at the Chinese market, for example, we will never be as large in that market as we once were,” he says. “But the idea is that, while we’re shrinking in that market, we’ll be growing in others. So there will be a rebalancing, if you will, of trade throughout the world.”

Regardless of what happens, Hart says 2019 looks like more of the same.

“It’s going to be a tight year.”

Hart spoke with Brownfield at the Iowa State University Integrated Crop Management conference in Ames.

AUDIO: Chad Hart