US farmers in full-blown crisis as Chinese orders for pork, soybeans, plunge on Trump tariffs

President Trump’s tariffs have sent the US agricultural industry into a “full-blown crisis” as canceled orders from China are forcing farmers to lay off workers or shut down their businesses, according to a trade group.China last week made its largest cancellation of pork orders since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, halting a shipment of 12,000 tons of pork, according to the Department of Agriculture.Meanwhile, China dropped its soybean orders to just 1,800 tons’ worth in the week ending April 17 – down massively from 72,800 tons purchased the week before, the USDA said.Wes Shoemyer, who runs a family farm in Clarence, Mo.that raises cattle and grows grains, said he’s nervous about whether US exporters will find foreign markets for his crops.“We are all still planting but it’s on a leap of faith that there will be a foreign market to export it to,” he told The Post. Trump’s 145% tariff on Chinese goods and the nation’s retaliatory 125% rate on the US have thrown a major wrench into trade across the board between the world’s two largest economies. In response, there has been a drastic increase in canceled sailings by Chinese vessels to US ports, with China to US vessel traffic down 44% compared to a year earlier, according to the Vizion Global Ocean Bookings Tracker.The impact of cancelled Chinese orders will be felt across the industry – starting with farms forced to shutter, then slamming the longshoremen out of work from cancelled sailings, then the truck drivers who transport goods from the ports, said Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition.“It’s already happening,” Friedman said.

“Unlike toys and television, so forth, it’s pretty dramatic.If nobody’s buying, you may harvest it because you got to get it off the trees, like cherries and fruit – but what do you do with it if you can’t sell it?”Shoppers may see a temporary influx of cheaper produce at supermarkets – like cherri...