What happened to U.S. farmers during the last trade war

Summary

Planet Money: What Happened to U.S. Farmers During the Last Trade War

Release Date: May 14, 2025
Hosts: Amanda Aronczyk & Jeff Guo
Guests: Lavon and Craig Griffune, Rob Johansen, Aaron Lehman

---

Introduction: Meet the Griffunes

The episode opens with Hosts Amanda Aronczyk and Jeff Guo introducing Lavon and Craig Griffune, seasoned farmers and proud grandparents from Iowa. Managing a sprawling 1,100-acre farm north of Des Moines, the Griffunes raise a diverse array of livestock, including chickens, pigs, sheep, turkeys, and limousine cattle—a lean French breed prized for its meat quality.

Notable Quote:

Craig Griffune [01:38]: "They taste expensive."

While livestock farming is a noble endeavor, the Griffunes emphasize that the primary source of their income stems from cultivating corn and soybeans, which they sell to international food processors.

---

Building International Trade Relationships

Lavon and Craig have long invested in fostering strong trade relationships, especially with China and Japan. Their farm has hosted high-profile visitors, including the Mayor of Beijing and Mexico's Secretary of Agriculture, underscoring the importance of these international ties.

Notable Quote:

Lavon Griffune [02:11]: "All of us in the farming industry have helped court international trade deals over the years."

By exporting billions of dollars' worth of soybeans and other crops annually, Iowa solidified its position as a major agricultural exporter.

---

The Onset of the Trade War

In April (presumably 2018), President Trump initiated a series of tariffs targeting various Chinese goods. China retaliated fiercely, imposing a staggering 135% tariff on U.S. soybeans, among other U.S. agricultural products like corn, wheat, pork, dairy, and cotton.

Impact on Farmers: This retaliatory move drastically reduced demand for American grains in China, leading to plummeting prices per bushel and creating financial strain for farmers like the Griffunes.

Notable Quote:

Craig Griffune [03:01]: "Ever since President Trump got elected, it's been up and down, more down than up."

Farmers began monitoring crop prices meticulously through services like Harvest Profit, receiving real-time updates directly from Chicago's commodity markets.

---

Navigating Market Volatility

With soybeans and corn prices falling to break-even levels, the Griffunes and other farmers faced tough decisions. They opted to store excess grains in large silos, attempting to wait out the market's volatility, though grain cannot be stored indefinitely without quality degradation.

Notable Quote:

Craig Griffune [03:57]: "We try to hit the highs when the market goes up and stay away from the lows."

Despite strategic storage, the uncertainty of market recovery posed significant risks to farm viability.

---

Historical Context: The Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC)

To understand the government's response, the hosts delve into the history of the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), established in the 1930s by Franklin D. Roosevelt to stabilize farm incomes during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl. The CCC had traditionally been utilized for disaster relief, loans, and trade missions.

Notable Quote:

Rob Johansen [07:57]: "Agriculture is becoming more productive."

This historical backdrop sets the stage for the unprecedented use of the CCC during the recent trade war.

---

Impact of the 2018 Trade War on U.S. Farmers

The trade war severely disrupted established trade relationships. Chinese retaliation wasn't limited to sorghum; it extended to a plethora of U.S. crops, including soybeans, corn, dairy, hogs, and specialty products like almonds and cherries.

Notable Anecdote: A cargo ship, the RB Eden, en route to Shanghai, was forced to reroute around Africa upon learning of China’s 179% tariff on sorghum, highlighting the immediate logistical and financial turmoil caused by the tariffs.

---

Farmer Perspectives: Voices of Concern

Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, shares the grim reality faced by farmers. Initially dismissing the tariffs as posturing, Lehman soon realized the severe economic impact as crop prices plummeted, leading to delayed investments and declining household incomes.

Notable Quote:

Aaron Lehman [13:26]: "The age of the average farmer in Iowa is 57 years old, and it's only getting older."

The financial strain made it increasingly difficult to attract the next generation to farming, threatening the sustainability of family farms.

---

Government Intervention: Market Facilitation Program

In response to the crisis, the Trump administration directed the USDA to implement the Market Facilitation Program (MFP) using funds from the CCC. This unprecedented move aimed to provide $23 billion in aid to farmers to mitigate the adverse effects of the tariffs.

Notable Quote:

Rob Johansen [20:11]: "The president was very interested in making sure that US Farmers knew that we were going to have their backs."

The program required farmers to apply through local USDA offices, ensuring that aid was distributed based on calculated needs without overwhelming the CCC's reserves.

---

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the MFP

While the MFP provided crucial financial support, it faced criticism regarding transparency, equitable distribution, and the extent of its impact. Some argued that it was a temporary band-aid rather than a comprehensive solution, and concerns arose about whether the funds reached all affected farmers fairly.

Notable Quote:

Craig Griffune [25:26]: "They sent a band-aid."

Despite these critiques, Rob Johansen of the USDA regarded the program as a necessary emergency measure that prevented a more catastrophic collapse of the farming sector.

Notable Quote:

Rob Johansen [24:33]: "Ultimately, it would have been way worse without the emergency CCC funds."

---

The Aftermath: Lasting Effects of the Trade War

In January 2020, the Phase One trade deal between the U.S. and China promised to reduce tariffs and include commitments from China to purchase $80 billion worth of U.S. agricultural products over two years. However, these promises were not fully realized, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing trade tensions.

Long-Term Impacts: China diversified its soybean imports, increasing purchases from Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay, permanently altering the agricultural export landscape for U.S. farmers.

Notable Quote:

Craig Griffune [26:31]: "Volatile. That's what I wanted to say."

The erosion of long-established trade relationships and the shift towards South American suppliers have had enduring repercussions for American agriculture.

---

Lessons Learned and Future Implications

The episode concludes by reflecting on the lessons from the 2018 trade war. It highlights the importance of robust trade relationships, the limitations of emergency government interventions, and the potential for long-term economic shifts resulting from geopolitical conflicts.

Notable Insight:

Lavon Griffune [25:56]: "The band-aid did not fix everything. And also something fundamental had been lost."

As trade tensions persist into 2025, the experiences of the Griffunes and their peers serve as a cautionary tale about the vulnerability of globalized agricultural markets to political and economic upheavals.

---

Conclusion

"What Happened to U.S. Farmers During the Last Trade War" offers a comprehensive exploration of the 2018 trade conflict's devastating effects on American agriculture. Through personal stories, historical context, and expert analysis, Planet Money underscores the intricate interplay between global trade policies and the livelihoods of farmers, emphasizing the need for strategic resilience in an increasingly volatile economic landscape.

---

Production Credits:
Produced by Sylvie Douglas
Edited by Jess Jiang
Engineered by Robert Rodriguez
Fact-checked by Sierra Juarez
Executive Producer: Alex Goldmark

Special Thanks: Benga Agilori, Grant Gerlach, and Joanna Broder.

---

Transcript

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[Host 1]

This is Planet Money from NPR.

[Host 2]

Every time I've called up Lavon and Craig Griffune, they've been busy with grandparent chores.

[Host 1]

Well, we have two babies today, a.

[Craig Griffune]

Two year old and a one year old.

[Host 2]

Oh my gosh. Are you guys Iowa's best grandparents?

[Host 1]

I don't think so.

[Craig Griffune]

The tiredest ones, probably.

[Lavon Griffune]

A little over a week ago on May 5, Lavon and Craig were babysitting two of their six granddaughters.

[Host 1]

My garden's right by our chicken pen and I just park the girls in their stroller and they will watch chickens for an hour while I garden. It's pretty repetitious, but they watch them.

[Lavon Griffune]

Lavon and Craig are farmers. Craig is the fifth generation to live on this family farm. It's pretty big, 1100 plus acres just north of Des Moines in Iowa. And in addition to raising chickens, they have pigs and sheep and turkeys and also something called limousine cattle.

[Host 1]

It's a French breed of cattle.

[Craig Griffune]

They come from France and they're very lean.

[Host 2]

They have expensive tastes.

[Host 1]

They taste expensive.

[Host 2]

But livestock farming is not what brings home the bacon, if you will.

[Craig Griffune]

Yeah, the majority of our income comes from corn and soybeans.

[Lavon Griffune]

Lavon and Craig sell their corn and soybeans to a food processor. That processor exports to international buyers. So like many in the farming industry, Craig and Lavon have helped court international trade deals over the years.

[Host 2]

They've hosted many interested parties at their picturesque farm, which is conveniently located near an airport.

[Craig Griffune]

Had a lot of people come to our farm from China and Japan.

[Host 1]

And I've had the mayor of Beijing here. I've had the secretary of agriculture from Mexico.

[Lavon Griffune]

All this courting of international buyers in general has paid off. Iowa exports billions of dollars in soybeans and other crops every year.

[Host 2]

But then, of course, in April, President Trump announced a whole truckload of tariffs, and some countries retaliated. For a little over a month, any of Levon and Craig's soybeans headed for China were subject to a retaliatory tariff of 135%. Wheat, corn, pork Dairy, cotton, those were also hit.

[Lavon Griffune]

That has meant less demand for Lavon and Craig's grains. And that really drove down the price per bushel that they can earn.

[Craig Griffune]

Ever since President Trump got elected, it's kind of been up and down, more down than up.

[Host 2]

Craig tracks the fluctuating prices of their crops using a service called Harvest Profit. It sends them alerts with the up to date changes in the price of each crop. Direct from the commodity markets in Chicago.

[Craig Griffune]

It comes into my phone three or four times a day. So yeah, I'm checking them every day. Some days I don't even want to look at them, but that, you know.

[Host 2]

But on this day, in early May, when we spoke with him, Craig was willing for us to face the markets. He showed us the day's prices.

[Craig Griffune]

Okay, May corn is down 13.75 cents.

[Host 2]

How is that? Is that good? Is that bad?

[Craig Griffune]

That's probably about break even. You'd like to make a little money to live on.

[Lavon Griffune]

Soybeans were down too. Basically, neither crop would net a profit if they sold their harvest on that day. But they do have a way to wait out the market's volatility, at least for a little while.

[Host 1]

It's not like we dump all our grain the minute it comes out of the field.

[Craig Griffune]

Yeah, we try to hit the highs, you know, when the market goes up and try to stay away from the lows.

[Lavon Griffune]

When the price gets too low, they have these big storage Bruins, they're like two stories high, and they store thousands of bushels of corn or soybeans or whatever with some air blowing in to keep the crops fresh and dry.

[Host 2]

How long can you store grain comfortably without it being like, if the price is just down, down, down, how long can it stay for?

[Craig Griffune]

I usually don't keep it over a year. Grain does get old, you know, when.

[Host 1]

It sets, it's just like your Wheaties.

[Host 2]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

After it's been around so long, you don't want that.

[Host 2]

You don't want to crack in that box.

[Host 1]

They don't taste quite as good as they used to.

[Host 2]

So will prices rise before Lavon and Craig's grains go bad? Earlier this week, they did get some Good news. The US and China agreed to a 90 day pause in the trade war. But American farmers are still facing a kind of existential uncertainty. And they remember what happened last time. Hello, and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Amanda Aronczyk.

[Lavon Griffune]

And I'm Jeff Guo. The US Exports billions of dollars worth of agricultural products every year. We're one of the world's largest ag exporters. But now our exports are caught up in a trade war with China and they don't want to buy lots of our things, including our soybeans and pork and corn.

[Host 2]

Today on the show, we go way, way back to 2018, to the last time US farmers were collateral damage in a trade war. We go back to see how the government stepped in to keep American farms from going bankrupt. What this might tell us about this moment and what might happen next.

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[Host 2]

Before we get to the 2018 trade war, we need to spend a little bit of time in the 1980s. At that time, American farms were in crisis. One of the reasons they were too good at farming, too efficient.

[Rob Johansen]

In the United States, we're producing a lot of output.

[Lavon Griffune]

This is Rob Johansen. He's the former chief economist for the Department of Agriculture, AKA the usda. He says there are a lot of innovations coming out in the lead up to the 80s that are helping farmers produce more food on the same amount of land.

[Rob Johansen]

The use of fertilizers is more targeted, the use of crop protectants is more targeted, and the crop varieties themselves are getting better. So over time, agriculture is becoming more productive.

[Host 2]

At that time, farmers were growing more agricultural commodities like soybeans and corn and wheat than Americans were buying, and also more than the rest of the world was buying. And farmers were maybe Thinking, wouldn't it be great if we could get someone to buy all of these extra soybeans?

[Lavon Griffune]

Yeah. Meanwhile, the US was in fact busy courting a quite large trade partner, China. The two countries had stopped trading with each other during the Cold war. And in 1979, the US and China officially opened their borders to each other again.

[Host 2]

So over the 1980s and 90s, trade expanded by a lot. China, they were great at making textiles and knitwear, so I'm guessing with a fair amount of certainty that they were sent sending us leg warmers and some neon green sweatshirts. Thank you so much. China loved it.

[Lavon Griffune]

This is what's great about trade. Each country doing what it's good at. And we are apparently really, really good at growing soybeans. And by the early 2000s, China starts buying a lot of our extra soybeans.

[Rob Johansen]

They're the number one country in pork production, for example, so they need a lot of our soybeans to feed their swineherds. And so we are exporting more and more of our soybeans to China for that reason.

[Host 2]

The post Cold War era is this booming time for globalization. There is more international trade, there's more investment, there are more ties between the US and Chinese economies.

[Lavon Griffune]

And by 2015, the relationship hits a major milestone. For the first time ever, China becomes the US's biggest trade partner. Canada and Mexico, they fall to second and third place.

[Host 2]

But as with all trade relations, there are issues, squabbles, disputes. And the US increasingly claims that some countries, especially China, are not playing fair, that they have been stealing intellectual property, that there have been hacks that have put U.S. national security at risk, and that their government is subsidizing industries unfairly.

[Rob Johansen]

The US felt like a number of countries were oversubsidizing their steel and aluminum production, and so the United States put tariffs on those products.

[Lavon Griffune]

So at the start of 2018, during President Trump's first administration, he opts not to arbitrate these disputes the normal way by going to the World Trade Organization. Instead, Trump uses his favorite tariffs. He puts tariffs on a bunch of Chinese products, including flat screen TVs, medical devices, and batteries. The idea is that the tariffs will make these Chinese products more expensive, so Americans will buy less of them.

[Host 2]

China is like, oh, you're going to tariff us? Well, then we are going to retaliate. We are going to hit you where it hurts. Those farm goods you send us, we are basically going to tariff them to the max, like on your sorghum, which is this ancient grain you usually use. It to feed animals. And China did this because they knew they could source affordable sorghum from other countries.

[Lavon Griffune]

Rob says there's one story that shows just how quickly the tremors of the 2018 trade war were felt around the world. Days after China announces the retaliatory tariffs.

[Rob Johansen]

There were ships loaded with sorghum from the US that were headed to China for offloading for their market.

[Host 2]

One of these was a cargo ship named the RB Eden. It was heading from Corpus Christi to Shanghai. And while en route, it gets wind of some news. It's a ship, so I assume all news comes via wind. China has imposed what was kind of a retaliatory tariff on sorghum at 179%. Yowza. That is a lot.

[Lavon Griffune]

Yeah. And presumably now the buyer in China does not want to pay the extra fee.

[Rob Johansen]

Offloading them in China would have meant facing very high tariffs on those imports.

[Host 2]

So the ship is like, okay, we can't unload in China and we're already more than halfway to Shanghai, so we're going to do a U. We're gonna head around the bottom of Africa and, I don't know, towards Spain.

[Lavon Griffune]

They are just trying to find some port where some buyer will take this grain off of their hands.

[Rob Johansen]

Of course, the buyer knows that you need to offload it, you know, quickly. Yeah.

[Host 2]

You don't wanna just like, float around for weeks or months on end.

[Rob Johansen]

Exactly, exactly.

[Lavon Griffune]

And it is clear to Rob and the others at the USDA that this is not just gonna be a problem for sorghum. China is likely gonna put more retaliatory tariffs on all sorts of other US Crops.

[Rob Johansen]

That's when we really first started putting a lot of emphasis into, like, what do we do about this? If we know this is going to happen, we know that all of a sudden, not just sorghum, but a lot of other ag products are going to be affected. Cotton, corn, dairy, hogs, soybeans, wheat. And then a number of specialty products that we sold to China, like almonds and cherries.

[Host 2]

All of these delicious items from American farms. No one in China will want to buy those products with the added tariffs tacked on top of them.

[Lavon Griffune]

Now, American farmers on those American farms, they are, of course, getting a little worried as they follow everything that is happening.

[Aaron Lehman]

Yeah. For me, it was hearing it on the farm news.

[Host 2]

This is Aaron Lehman, farmer and president of the Iowa Farmers Union. He was like, surely we're not starting a trade war, are we?

[Aaron Lehman]

To be honest, I think, like a lot of farmers, we were thinking, okay, this might be posturing. This might be some saber rattling.

[Host 2]

And then when did it become apparent that it wasn't what you thought it was going to be?

[Aaron Lehman]

Well, I think it escalated and escalated.

[Lavon Griffune]

And escalated, meaning that China was buying less and less and less from US Farmers. And so the prices of two of Aaron's main crops, soybeans and corn, they were dropping.

[Aaron Lehman]

So farmers at that point are scrambling to try to find ways to tighten their bel.

[Host 2]

Aaron put off upgrading his tractor. He also put off making improvements to his planter and combine. His household income went down.

[Aaron Lehman]

For farmers like me, you know, I'm the fifth generation in our farm, and the age of the average farmer In Iowa is 57 years old, and it's only getting older. So the need to bring the next generation of farmers back to the land is extremely important. Well, you're not going to do that in a time of crisis.

[Lavon Griffune]

Aaron has two kids. At the time, they were both in college. He wasn't sure if they'd come back to work on the farm. And it is a lot harder to convince your kids to come back when crops are selling for a fraction of what they used to sell for. Just doesn't seem like a viable job.

[Host 2]

Now, remember, a lot of farmers had worked for years to develop trade relations with buyers in other countries, but this 2018 trade war was putting all of that in jeopardy.

[Lavon Griffune]

And as the trade war was escalating, Aaron says the farmers were starting to get really worried because even though this fight wasn't initially about agriculture, China had targeted them. The farmers, they were collateral damage.

[Aaron Lehman]

So it's no fault of their own when they have built up these trade relationships for years and years and years, and then a flip is switched, and all of a sudden all that work gets yanked.

[Host 2]

Now, the first Trump administration was watching all of this happen, and it looked like China was being strategic with going after farms hitting the states where a lot of Trump voters live.

[Lavon Griffune]

And the Trump administration could see that the farmers were in trouble, and they didn't want a bunch of their voters going bankrupt as a result of their trade war.

[Aaron Lehman]

So there was talk about, okay, is there a way to help farmers who are impacted? So that's when we started hearing about possible trade payments.

[Lavon Griffune]

Trade payments, sometimes called trade aid, which rhymes, sometimes called trade mitigation payments.

[Host 2]

That one doesn't rhyme.

[Lavon Griffune]

Anyway, In April of 2018, right after China retaliated against the U.S. trump instructed the Secretary of Agriculture to come up with a plan.

[Aaron Lehman]

It came from the administration, from the usda, and the plan was to use The Commodity Credit Corporation.

[Lavon Griffune]

The Commodity Credit Corporation. Basically this fund was created way back in the 1930s under Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Depression and the Dust bowl years when drought was devastating the Midwest.

[Host 2]

FDR was famous for his fireside chats where he would ask fellow Americans to pull up a chair and listen to him on the radio.

[Craig Griffune]

My friends, I have been on a journey of husbandry.

[Lavon Griffune]

FDR had journeyed to the Midwest to look at the country's farms.

[Craig Griffune]

I saw drought devastation in nine states. I talked with families who had lost their wheat crop, lost their corn crop, lost their livestock.

[Host 2]

FDR saw the cracked blistered earth, the grasshoppers, the starving animals. It was clear that American farms were in the middle of an environmental and.

[Lavon Griffune]

Economic disaster and farms were going bankrupt. The President thought that the markets for grain and livestock were or vulnerable to these natural or man made threats. And so leaving food up to the free market might mean that people wouldn't have enough to eat.

[Host 2]

So FDR set up this government run fund to quote, stabilize, support and protect farm income and prices. The Commodity Credit Corporation, the ccc. And the funds would be distributed largely at the discretion of the Secretary of Agriculture.

[Lavon Griffune]

Coming up after the break, we Fast forward to 2018 when the trade war hits American farms and the government steps in to try and save them using the ccc.

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[Host 2]

So remember in April 2018 when that cargo ship had to do a UE while it was on its way to China? That was when it became clear that the 2018 trade war was going to be a disaster for US farmers.

[Lavon Griffune]

Once President Trump decides that the government needs to step in, he turns to the usda and he's like, we are going to need a program to keep farms from going bankrupt. Rob Johansson was at the USDA at the time, and he remembers all of this pressure coming from the White House.

[Rob Johansen]

The president was very interested in making sure that US Farmers knew that we were going to have their backs when it came to this tariff situation.

[Host 2]

He and his team jump in to try to figure out what to do. They are going to need money. They need to move fast. It would be kind of maybe helpful to not have to go to Congress for this.

[Lavon Griffune]

Then they remember that they've got that special pot of money, the Commodity Credit Corporation, that sweet, sweet CCC cash that's available to them now.

[Host 2]

Using the CCC to try to save hundreds of thousands of farmers being hit with trade damage was a bit unusual. The fund had mostly been used to help farmers after a hurricane, or they gave out loans, or they paid for trade missions from the fund.

[Rob Johansen]

I would say that the one difference was that this was a much larger program that we NC'd in the past. It had never been used at that level before for an ad hoc type of program to deal with a unforeseen situation.

[Lavon Griffune]

Basically, they were going to need to pull a lot more money out of that fund than usual to reimburse the farmers. But this, this was an emergency, and they quickly decide that the CCC money is their best option.

[Host 2]

Rob and his team have to figure out how to best distribute the money. And it's a pretty chaotic moment. There are trade disputes going on with several different countries, but there are some findable outables, like roughly how many farmers are going to be impacted.

[Rob Johansen]

We'll compare two things. What is our estimate of damages? That's one number. How much money do we have is another number.

[Lavon Griffune]

What they had was about $12 billion in the CCC to work with, but they don't want to spend all of that at once. And who knows how long these trade wars are going to go on for?

[Rob Johansen]

This is during a dynamic period in which the US Government is engaged with negotiations with these other countries, and this program may not be needed in eight months.

[Host 2]

Right. Like, what if the USDA gives out a bunch of taxpayer money? The trade war ends. And the farmers didn't actually need all that money after all.

[Lavon Griffune]

So Rob and his team at the USDA make some detailed calculations. Which crops are affected by how much? How much money do we have? Who is eligible? And they come up with a formula, and they use it to launch a program that gets a fun name, the Market Facilitation Program. And farmers apply for funds at their local USDA office.

[Host 2]

They have to be thoughtful about it. They don't want to send out too much taxpayer money if the trade war suddenly gets resolved. And they don't want to mess up the agricultural markets by accidentally incentivizing farmers to grow, say, soybeans instead of cotton just to collect a check. In total, they paid out $23 billion to farmers.

[Lavon Griffune]

Finally, in January 2020, the US and China strike a deal. It's known as the phase one trade deal. There is a lot in it, including reducing tariffs and a commitment from China to buy more stuff. And for Rob and the farmers, this includes promises from China to buy more from American farms.

[Rob Johansen]

So what does that mean? That means that they're going to be buying over those two years about, you know, $80 billion worth of ag products.

[Lavon Griffune]

Ag products like corn and pork and soybeans. And with that, the trade war ends with a deal.

[Host 2]

But the US did not come out of this trade war with a win. China never actually met its purchasing promises, in part because of the pandemic and also because maybe the goals were not that realistic. Plus, a lot of the issues that launched the trade war, those worries over intellectual property theft and fair competition and fair trade, many of those have still not been resolved.

[Lavon Griffune]

So what did people think of the Market Facilitation program, the program that sent checks to farmers? Well, some government watchdogs and politicians and farmers have criticized the program. Some felt that there wasn't enough transparency or that the decision to distribute this much money should have been left to Congress.

[Host 2]

Another complaint, that the money wasn't distributed fairly. There were complaints that red states got more and that some companies, like a giant meat packing company, for example, got money that was supposed to go to farmers.

[Rob Johansen]

There has been a fair amount of Monday morning quarterbacking going on about how well we did. Did we make the program too generous in some respects, or are we deficient in other areas? You know, it's all easier to look at in the past when you have four years of historical perspective, and I think it's wise for people to do that now.

[Host 2]

Rob was a pretty good sport about all of the criticism. You know, there are lessons we can all learn from do better next time. And overall, he thought the program was a success.

[Lavon Griffune]

In the end, hundreds of farms did go bankrupt. Small to medium farms were hit the hardest. But it would have been way worse without the emergency CCC funds. So how did some of the farmers feel about it?

[Host 2]

We asked Lavon and Craig, doting grandparents and owners of an 1100 plus acre farm, what they thought about the program.

[Craig Griffune]

We did get a government payment, but the payment we got was something like $20 an acre.

[Host 2]

So basically, the government bailout helped you break even?

[Host 1]

Well, not even.

[Craig Griffune]

Not even.

[Host 1]

Even didn't pencil out.

[Craig Griffune]

It just looked good. It was a big selling point, good campaign message. Well, we helped bail the farmer out, you know. Well, they didn't.

[Host 1]

They sent a band aid.

[Craig Griffune]

It's a band aid.

[Lavon Griffune]

Yeah. The band aid did not fix everything. And also something fundamental had been lost. There has been lasting damage now to the trade relationships that had been years in the making.

[Host 2]

During the trade war, China started buying more and more soybeans from Brazil and Argentina and Uruguay. And when the 2018, 2019 trade war ended, China, that buying kept going. China now buys the bulk of their soybeans from South America.

[Lavon Griffune]

And some of the deals between American farmers and Chinese buyers never came back.

[Craig Griffune]

Well, in the last 30, 40 years, we've built up relationships with China, Mexico, Canada and talked them into buying our product. And in 10 minutes, Trump with his tariffs, all that's out the door. And so, you know, will those relationships come back when the tariffs situation isn't quite so violent?

[Host 1]

Volatile.

[Craig Griffune]

Volatile. That's what I wanted to say.

[Lavon Griffune]

Now, this time around, in the 2025 trade war, the retaliatory tariffs have been much less targeted. So many industries are taking a hit, from farming to manufacturing to energy. And if things get really bad, it wouldn't be possible to effectively bail them all out. But bailout or not, trade wars have a way of permanently changing your economy, sometimes causing irreparable damage.

[Host 2]

Right now, President Trump and trade representatives from China have somewhat de. Escalated the situation. Those 135% retaliatory tariffs on soybeans, 100. Are paused for now. But U.S. soybeans do still face a retaliatory tariff of about 10 to 20%. And this is really just a 90 day truce, not an actual trade deal. So depending on the details, it is still not clear if farmers or any group will want or need a bailout in the future. Today's episode was produced by Sylvie Douglas and was edited by Jess Jiang. It was engineered by Robert Rodriguez and fact checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

[Lavon Griffune]

Also, a special thanks to Benga Agilori, Grant Gerlach and Joanna Broder. I'm Jeff Guo.

[Host 2]

And I'm Amanda aronczyk. This is NPR. Thanks for listening.

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