Jerry Schmitz, executive director of the South Dakota Soybean Association and South Dakota Soybean Checkoff, participates in a roundtable discussion hosted by Farmers for Free Trade on Sept. 6, 2025, at the Central States Fairgrounds in Rapid City. (Seth Tupper/South Dakota Searchlight)
RAPID CITY — Jerry Schmitz is rarely at a loss for words about soybeans.
But when asked if farmers have faith in a good outcome from the Trump administration’s trade standoff with China, his gaze shifted and his brow creased momentarily as he thought about the best way to answer.
“Hope might be the better word over faith,” he said.
Schmitz, of rural Vermillion, is the executive director of the South Dakota Soybean Association and the South Dakota Soybean Checkoff. A checkoff is a fee that’s collected from soybean sales and used for research and promotion of the crop.
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During and after a roundtable discussion Saturday at the Central States Fairgrounds hosted by a nonprofit called Farmers for Free Trade, Schmitz expressed concerns about the effects of trade disputes on farmers.
About 60% of soybeans grown in South Dakota are exported, with China formerly buying about 30%, Schmitz said. China imports soybeans largely for livestock feed to meet the growing demand for meat among its 1.4 billion people.
Now the country is boycotting purchases of U.S. soybeans in retaliation for tariffs on Chinese goods imposed recently by Republican President Donald Trump.
“There is not a bushel sold to China right now, and we’re about to harvest,” Schmitz said.
Trump has said he’s wielding tariffs — taxes on imported goods — as a negotiating tool to correct trade imbalances with other countries.
The Chinese boycott has reduced demand for U.S. soybeans, which has influenced prices. Soybeans sold for about $10.50 per bushel one year ago in South Dakota, but are now $1 to $1.50 lower, and there are fears of further declines without a China trade deal.
Another participant in Saturday’s roundtable, South Dakota Republican Congressman Dusty Johnson, put the impact of lower prices in perspective. Noting that South Dakota farmers raise nearly 250 million bushels of soybeans annually, he said a price drop of $2 per bushel translates to a loss of $500 million.
Johnson said he’s spoken with the Trump administration’s U.S. trade representative about the importance of resolving the China trade dispute quickly.
“We need a deal sooner rather than later,” Johnson said, “because there is not an unlimited ability in farm country to be able to weather the storm.”
Johnson and Schmitz said farmers are planning to store some of the soybeans they’ll harvest this fall, in hopes of selling later at a higher price. Schmitz said grain elevators and soybean processors lacking buyers might have to store excess beans on the ground outside their facilities.
Both also stressed the long-term importance of finding additional buyers for U.S. soybeans. That could include developing better trade relationships with countries that have large populations and growing economies, such as India.
It could also include capitalizing on new domestic markets, such as the possibility of converting soybean oil into sustainable aviation fuel. A $500 million processing plant that will open this fall in Mitchell, for example, will process soybeans and other oilseed crops for uses in renewable fuel, food, livestock feed, lubricants and more.
Those efforts could reduce dependence on Chinese demand but aren’t likely to wholly replace it.
“Although we want to diversify away from China, you simply can’t ignore China,” Johnson said.
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The congressman said many of the farmers he meets are “still backing the president’s play” to use tariffs in negotiations that could benefit agriculture in the future, but he said high tariffs “cannot be business as usual on a go-forward basis.”
“The president’s trying to use them as a tool to get better deals,” Johnson said. “I understand that approach, but we do not want to just end with high tariffs.”
The roundtable organizer, Farmers for Free Trade, is on a 14-state tour in an RV wrapped with pro-trade messaging. The group advocates for open markets and reduced trade barriers, said its executive director, Brian Kuehl, of Wyoming.
He referenced a statistic indicating exports account for 20% of the value of U.S. agricultural production.
“So if you were to lose all your exports, you’re going to lose farms, and you’re going to lose farmers. You’re going to lose rural America and rural communities,” Kuehl said.
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