The clock is ticking on trade deals that the U.S. will need to strike with many nations, most notably China, to avoid what Trump's Treasury Secretary has described as an "unsustainable" tariffs war. But in the U.S. farming sector, the damage has already been done and the economic crisis already begun.
U.S. agriculture exporters say the global backlash to President Trump's tariffs is punishing them, especially a decline in Chinese buying of U.S. farm products, leading to cancelled export orders and layoffs. Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, a leading export trade group for farmers, tells CNBC the number of canceled purchases of U.S. agriculture should not be described as approaching a crisis. "It is a full-blown crisis already," he said.