Wisconsin farmers say China’s decision to halt the purchase of billions of dollars in U.S. agricultural products could be an epic blow to the rural economy that’s already struggling from trade wars.

China, in an announcement Tuesday, said it would suspend the purchases in response to a recent U.S. decision to slap 10% tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese goods.

It’s all part of a nagging trade war that has lasted more than a year and has hurt American farmers who rely on exports to fuel their business.

China is Wisconsin’s third-largest trading partner, behind Canada and Mexico, with more than $1.6 billion in goods and services shipped there in 2018. Dairy products, corn, soybeans, ginseng and cranberries are some of the agricultural markets that have come to rely on Chinese trade deals.

But in the first four months of 2019 alone, Wisconsin exports to China fell by $134.3 million, or 25%, according to recent figures from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Whey, a food ingredient made from cheesemaking, was among the hardest-hit products, the bank noted.

“The harm the trade war with China is causing to our dairy farmers and processors is real and is growing by the day. It’s not a stretch to say that farms across the country are closing because of the cascading effects,” said Brody Stapel, president of Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative, based in Green Bay with members throughout the Midwest.

“Clearly, this will get worse if China follows through on a threat to shut agriculture out completely,” Stapel said. “All of this volatility compounds other problems dairy farmers are dealing with, like the low prices they’re getting for their milk and the extreme weather conditions that are hurting their crops.”

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The U.S. and China have been sparring over President Donald Trump’s allegations that Beijing has used predatory tactics, including stealing sensitive technology, to gain advantage over American companies.

Trump imposed 25% tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese imports. Beijing counterpunched by taxing $110 billion in U.S. goods, specifically targeting farm products in America’s heartland such as Wisconsin ginseng — hit with tariffs of 15% and higher — milk powder and cheese.

Dairy farmers are especially vulnerable to trade wars now as they've dealt with more than four consecutive years of low milk prices.

In the first half of 2019, 449 dairy farms were lost in Wisconsin alone — nearly 25% more than during the same period last year. Likewise, producers of pork, beef, corn and soybeans have struggled this year in markets disrupted by trade wars.

China has leverage, said Karen Gefvert, executive director of governmental relations for the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, the state’s largest farm group.

“I think the Chinese are twisting the screws to a point of the American public that really hurts already, and that’s farmers,” Gefvert said.

China’s announcement is a "body blow to thousands of farmers and ranchers who are already struggling to get by," American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall said in a statement.

"In the last 18 months alone, farm and ranch families have dealt with plunging commodity prices, awful weather and tariffs higher than we have seen in decades. Farm Bureau economists tell us exports to China were down by $1.3 billion during the first half of the year. Now, we stand to lose all of what was a $9.1 billion market in 2018, which was down sharply from the $19.5 billion U.S. farmers exported to China in 2017," he said.

Wisconsin is very split when it comes to support for Trump, and that remains true in the farm community.

"We want to support our president, and we want to support the efforts to clean up some of these problems with intellectual property and the inequities of trade, but it obviously hits us hard," said Andy Bensend, a soybean farmer from Barron County.

"China was an unparalleled opportunity for us to sell a lot of beans. We are, quite honestly, reluctant to see it go away," Bensend said.

A worldwide surplus of milk has driven down the price American farmers receive to the point where many have lost money for months, or even several years, at a time. While the price is expected to improve this fall, a return to more normal trading relations would help stabilize the marketplace.

"A trade deal with China, in my opinion, would dramatically support the milk price. It would allow for all sorts of agricultural products to be exported," said Julie Sweney, marketing and communications director for FarmFirst Dairy Cooperative in Madison.

Trump has accused China of not fulfilling a promise to buy large amounts of U.S. agricultural products, a claim the Chinese government has dismissed. More than 2 million tons of U.S. soybeans were shipped to China in July after Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, according to China's National Development and Reform Commission.

In the next three years, China is expected to become the world’s largest consumer of dairy products. If tariffs as high as 45% are lifted, U.S. suppliers could regain market share. Otherwise, they’ll continue to struggle on an uneven playing field with competitors such as New Zealand and the European Union.

With 95% of the world’s population living outside the U.S., exports are crucial to the dairy industry’s growth. Nearly 16% of all U.S. milk produced last year went into the export market. Looking at it another way, about one in six tankers of milk leaving American dairy farms ends up in products sold abroad.

The longer the trade war with China persists, the more risk there is of permanent damage to U.S. agriculture.

"We can't afford to lose billions of dollars if we don't get this settled. A lot of farms continue to file for bankruptcy," said Laurie Fischer, executive director of The American Dairy Coalition, a trade group based in Green Bay.