From Soybeans to Pulses: The Self-Inflicted Wounds of US Trade Wars
The damage to American agriculture did not begin with India’s pulse tariffs or China’s soybean bans. It began when the United States decided that unpredictability was a negotiating tactic and that global trade could be strong-armed without consequences. Under President Donald Trump, tariffs became less an economic instrument and more a political performance. Farmers were told to endure short-term pain for long-term gain. What they received instead was permanent market erosion.
Soybeans were the first and clearest casualty. When the US escalated tariffs against China, Beijing responded by slashing soybean imports from America, a move that hit the Midwest immediately. Prices fell, storage overflowed, and farmers who had spent decades building the Chinese market lost it almost overnight. China did not merely pause purchases. It rewired its supply chain, shifting aggressively toward Brazil and other South American producers. That shift was not ideological. It was practical. The US had become a politically risky supplier.
Washington tried to paper over the damage with bailout packages. Billions of dollars were paid out to farmers to soften the blow. But subsidies are not markets. They keep businesses alive, not competitive. While cheques flowed, foreign buyers learned a critical lesson. American farm exports could be disrupted by domestic politics at any time. Once that lesson was absorbed, trust did not return when tariffs eased. The market had already moved on.
This soybean shock did not go unnoticed globally. Governments, especially those dependent on food imports, began reassessing exposure to US agricultural supply. What they saw was not a reliable partner but a system where trade access could be weaponised overnight. The logical response was insulation. Diversify suppliers. Build domestic buffers. Use tariffs not as punishment, but as protection.
That context matters when looking at pulses and India. Pulses are not a marginal commodity in India. They are central to food security, inflation control, and rural livelihoods. Price volatility in pulses translates directly into political instability. When India raises tariffs on imported pulses, it is not retaliating against the US. It is shielding itself from the kind of external shock that US trade wars made normal. From New Delhi’s perspective, allowing unrestricted access to a supplier whose policy swings with electoral moods would be economic negligence.
Yet US lawmakers now frame this as unfairness. Letters are written demanding that India lower tariffs and open its markets to American pulses. The contradiction is glaring. The same political system that normalised tariff coercion is now asking other countries to trust that it will not do so again. No serious government operates on assurances alone. Especially after experience proves otherwise.
American farmers are the quiet victims in this cycle. They were told tariffs were leverage. They were told markets would return. Instead, they became dependent on government support while watching export destinations shrink. Their products did not become uncompetitive because of quality or price, but because of perceived political risk. Once that perception sets in, it is extraordinarily difficult to reverse.
The damage is now structural. Global agriculture has adjusted. Supply chains have diversified. New producers have scaled up. Buyers have redundancy. There is no economic incentive to revert to old dependencies simply because Washington wants relief for its farmers. Rebuilding trust requires years of consistent behaviour, not pressure campaigns.
From soybeans to pulses, the story is the same. The United States inflicted these wounds on itself by turning trade into a blunt political weapon. Other countries did not attack American agriculture. They adapted to American volatility. Until the US accepts that reality and restores credibility through restraint and stability, its farmers will continue paying the price for decisions made far from their fields.
