During a day trip to North Carolina, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue was thanked on Monday for the billions of dollars the Trump administration is sending to farmers to mitigate the impact of trade war with China. But he was also prodded for a resumption in exports. “Tell him to tell (President) Trump to make a deal with China,” said one grower, reading aloud a text message from this 12-year-old son, adding that in North Carolina, “we are really struggling.”
Another farmer, who said tobacco sales have been disrupted by the trade war, said the mitigation payments were known locally as “Sonny money.” And another, also speaking at a town hall meeting at the University of Mount Olive, said conditions were the worst he’s seen in 43 years of farming. “This isn’t just a bump in the road in eastern North Carolina. The house is on fire.”
Perdue met growers the same day that U.S. negotiators opened a new round of trade talks in Beijing.
“We are talking about specific amounts” of U.S. products that China might buy if the trade war is resolved, said Perdue. Before the trade war, China was the top market for U.S. farm exports.