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CoBank report shows U.S. farmers taking brunt of retaliatory tariffs

A new CoBank report on the cost of retaliatory tariffs shows U.S. farmers are paying the highest price.

CoBank research manager Tanner Ehmke says they analyzed 11 major commodities and found that in most cases, the exporter takes the brunt of tariff retaliation.

“They pay that by lowering their export price to make it competitive into that market to account for that tariff. Then, that lower price ultimately backs into the supply chain all the way back to the U.S. farmer, who ends up getting paid a lower price.”

He tells Brownfield the value of U.S. sorghum into China dropped 100 percent after the Chinese government slapped a 25 percent retaliatory tariff on it.

“So across the board, what’s the takeaway here? The farmer is going to suffer financially when prices drop in response to these retaliatory tariffs.”

Ehmke says if the trade war goes on, the bargaining power of the U.S. will decline even further because trading routes will be re-routed away from the United States. 

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