Behind the Numbers: The Trade War’s Impact on American Agriculture

Trade disputes with international trade partners have been a significant cause for market volatility and have been ever-present in the press since the start of 2018. The US announced tariffs on all imported washing machines and solar panels and later added steel, aluminum, and other imports. Trading partners have countered by imposing new and steeper tariffs of their own. While the media has homed in on the evolving and very unpredictable relationship with China and the general plight of the American farmer due to these retaliatory tariffs, the team at Skyline Advisors wanted to dig in to the underlying data to explore more specific figures on the impact to US agricultural products.
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We compiled and analyzed data from the USDA’s Foreign Agriculture Service and evaluated just how much China’s tariffs have affected exports of key US agricultural exports. The results are summarized here and the full report is available below.

​Highlights

• Overall trade has been affected by China, as the annualized dollar value of US agricultural exports to all countries has declined 1.1% since pre-trade-war 2017
• The actual volume (metric tons) of these exports has fallen 4.6% during the same time period
• The annualized value of agricultural exports to China has declined 46.5%, while volume has decreased 55%, during this time period
• On an annualized basis, US exports to China have declined over $9 billion since 2017
• Increased trade with other countries has partially offset China’s decline, resulting in total US ag exports declining by just $1.5 billion over the same period
• There is significant weakness in the year-over-year export values of oilseed, dairy, and tobacco product exports, categories in which China has spent 10.5%, 54.8%, and 100%, respectively, less than last year
• Farm incomes continue to be affected by the trade war, low prices, Midwest flooding, and other issues

 
A copy of the full 30-page report is available here.
 
Contact our team if you would like to learn more about data, trends, and capital markets activity within your industry, or if you would like to discuss strategic options.