{"id":231101,"date":"2025-10-29T00:54:24","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T00:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/231101\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T00:54:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T00:54:24","slug":"a-soybean-farmer-himself-treasury-sec-bessent-said-hes-feeling-pain-from-china-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/231101\/","title":{"rendered":"A \u2018soybean farmer\u2019 himself, Treasury Sec. Bessent said he\u2019s feeling \u2018pain\u2019 from China, too"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Hundreds of thousands of American soybean farmers are suffering<\/a> from a monthslong effective embargo by China as part of a global trade war. Among them: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI\u2019m actually a soybean farmer,\u201d Bessent said over the weekend in an ABC News interview. \u201cI have felt this pain, too,\u201d he told Martha Raddatz.\n <\/p>\n

\n China, usually the largest buyer of American soybeans by far, significantly increased tariffs on the legumes in May after President Donald Trump enacted import levies on Chinese goods. Since then, China hasn\u2019t purchased any American soybeans.\n <\/p>\n

\n But the pain from that de facto boycott might not be shared equally. Many soybean farmers rely on their crops for most of their income. That doesn\u2019t appear to be the case for Bessent, whom Forbes<\/a> estimates has a net worth of around $600 million.\n <\/p>\n

\n Bessent owns farmland that grows soybeans and corn across North Dakota. The land is valued at between $5 million and $25 million and generates an annual income of between $100,000 and $1 million, according to financial disclosure forms he submitted ahead of his confirmation hearing and which were amended in May.\n <\/p>\n

\"Treasury<\/p>\n

\n That income comes \u201cthrough a revenue sharing agreement, which is tied to the price of the crops produced,\u201d his financial disclosure form states.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Office of Government Ethics has given Bessent until December 15 to divest from the farmland, among other assets he disclosed that are considered to be potential conflicts of interest.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAt this point, just 4% of my required divestitures remain, much of which is farmland, an inherently highly illiquid asset,\u201d Bessent said in a statement provided to CNN. At the same time, his efforts to sell soybean-producing farmland could be hindered by the current trade climate that\u2019s pushed soybean prices down.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhile any amount of money is immaterial compared with the honor of serving the American people, the Secretary has written off or experienced opportunity losses of nearly $100 million since assuming office,\u201d a Treasury spokesperson added in a statement to CNN. \u201cAs mutually agreed upon between the Secretary, Treasury Ethics, and OGE, he looks forward to being in full compliance by December 15th.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Jake Benike, 36, who grows corn and soybeans with his father, Gary, on their family\u2019s 1,700-acre farm in Elgin, Minnesota, is contemplating a departure from the business too, but for far different reasons.\n <\/p>\n

\n Despite losing Chinese customers, Benike said he didn\u2019t get \u201ccompletely hammered\u201d because favorable weather gave them more bushels to sell elsewhere.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBut now we\u2019re making decisions for next year, and it\u2019s like, \u2018Did we lose our market?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cIf this is what the new price is going to be \u2026 it\u2019s not very appealing to try to grow these beans.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Three<\/p>\n

\n The decision whether to continue growing soybeans, as his family has for the past six decades, largely hinges on the outcome of a high-stakes meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this week, Benike\u2019s wife, Beth, told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n Bessent, who met with Chinese trade negotiators<\/a> over the weekend, said, \u201cI believe when the announcement of the deal with China is made public, that our soybean farmers will feel very good about what\u2019s going on both for this season and the coming seasons for several years.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n That couldn\u2019t be further from how Benike is feeling now. \u201cWe might have lost our soybean market,\u201d he said. \u201cI might be telling my grandkids that I used to grow soybeans and now that\u2019s just something that South America does.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of thousands of American soybean farmers are suffering from a monthslong effective embargo by China as part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-231101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}