{"id":208680,"date":"2025-10-08T08:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T08:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/208680\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T08:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T08:49:08","slug":"north-carolina-soybean-farmers-face-financial-crisis-amid-trade-war-and-china-boycott-wral-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/208680\/","title":{"rendered":"North Carolina soybean farmers face financial crisis amid trade war and China boycott :: WRAL.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump\u2019s trade war is rippling through the U.S. agriculture industry, and the impact is being felt especially hard in North Carolina.<\/p>\n

Ten to 20 years ago, when tobacco sales began to decline, many farmers in the state switched to soybeans. Today, soybeans are among North Carolina\u2019s biggest cash crops, and one of the hardest hit by new tariffs and trade tensions.<\/p>\n

At the heart of a soybean field, Lorenda Overman feels right at home.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are a little small because we\u2019ve not had any rain lately, but these are soybeans,\u201d she said, standing among the rows of plants on her family\u2019s Wayne County farm.<\/p>\n

Her husband\u2019s family has been farming there for generations. But this year has brought new challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve not seen this level of concern in agriculture in a long time,\u201d Overman said.<\/p>\n

Rising costs on things like seed, fertilizer, and even farm equipment, \u00a0all tied to tariffs, are squeezing farmers\u2019 budgets. Overman says she and her husband aren\u2019t sure how they\u2019ll repay the annual loans they rely on to start each growing season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t sleep some nights \u2026 worried about how we\u2019re going to figure out how to pay that loan back and pay our bills,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Adding to the strain, China, one of the largest buyers of U.S. soybeans, has announced a boycott of the crop.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the concern is that China is going to find another market that is easier and better, and they won\u2019t come back,\u201d Overman said.<\/p>\n

Trump has proposed an aid package <\/a>for U.S. soybean farmers in response to the boycott. He also claims a new soybean deal is still possible, but farmers like Overman fear it may come too late to make a difference this season.<\/p>\n

We asked Overman what she thought would happen if China found a new buyer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no idea what we would do,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

North Carolina Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler released a statement expressing cautious optimism about the potential aid.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am happy to hear President Trump is considering aid for farmers who have become targets in broader global trade negotiations. We all depend on farmers to feed us, and we need them to be able to continue to produce food and fiber. Farmers are hurting right now financially, and we could see many go out of business without this assistance.”<\/p>\n

At a press conference on Tuesday, WRAL News asked U.S. Don Davis, D-North Carolina, what steps are being taken locally in eastern North Carolina to help struggling farmers.<\/p>\n

Davis said he\u2019s been hearing from farmers of all kinds who are struggling under the economic pressure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re well glad to share a letter that we\u2019ve sent out, advocating to make sure that we\u2019re able to get some funds out the door, to help,\u201d Davis said.<\/p>\n

For farmers like the Overmans, that help can\u2019t come soon enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Any sort of federal assistance would be a game-changer for North Carolina\u2019s soybean producers, many of whom are anxiously waiting to see what happens next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump\u2019s trade war is rippling through the U.S. agriculture industry, and the impact is being felt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101],"class_list":["post-208680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}