The growing trade war between the U.S. and China will hurt farmers across the country – and Virginia in particular – and the implications will also likely be felt by American consumers paying higher prices on goods imported from China, says a Virginia Tech expert who has focused her research efforts on Chinese markets for over a decade.
“It’s too early to say which country might be hurt more but U.S. farmers, particularly soybean farmers, will feel a negative impact of Chinese tariffs,” said Virginia Tech’s Mary Marchant, a professor of agricultural and applied economics and education lead for the Center for Agricultural Trade. “Nobody will win a trade war. The economies of both countries will suffer.”
Marchant noted that U.S. pork producers are about to be hit by a second round of tariffs that has some large producers predicting they will lose big money.
The trade standoff escalated Friday morning as the Trump administration followed through with threats to impose tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products, the New York Times reported. The penalties prompted retaliation by Beijing, which said it immediately put its own similarly sized tariffs on American goods.
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