“Thereʼs always cycles in agriculture, right?” Bart Ruth said as his truck bounced down a gravel road between flat fields of corn and rye stubble, part covered in snow. “But there havenʼt been too many that were self-inflicted.” He surveyed the land that has been in the family since the 1870s, a freezing wind slicing […]

Across the US this year, farmers have seen costs soar and the price of their produce tumble as Donald Trump’s flagship tariffs sparked a trade war with China.

American farmers, who voted en masse for Trump last year, are now warning of the worst economic crisis since the 1980s, when soaring interest rates and a slump in exports saw the price of crops and the value of farmland collapse. About 300,000 farmers defaulted on their loans and thousands were driven into bankruptcy.

“We spent a hell lot of time in China building relationships, building those markets,” he said. “And then you basically piss it all away, to be blunt.”