President Donald Trump, wanting to protect U.S. farmers from China's threatened tariffs, may end up pitting his country against many more nations in a trade spat that has hit global markets and worried the international business community, experts said Friday. If the Trump administration chooses to subsidize American farmers further, that could trigger retaliatory tariffs and subsidies in major exporters of agricultural products such as the European Union and Brazil, the experts added. An additional agricultural subsidy from the U.S. "brings third parties into the dispute, who could be expected, at a minimum, to complain to the World Trade Organization," said Simon Baptist, Asia managing director and chief economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit.

It is basically impossible for the U.S. to be confident that any actions it takes will protect its agricultural sector from Chinese tariffs, given the ways that other countries will respond to it. Simon Baptist Asia managing director and chief economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit

Trump can't really help US farmers after all

Whatever measures the USDA eventually comes up with, it's unlikely that they would be effective because China can always impose counter-measures, experts said. Such tit-for-tat could actually benefit other agricultural exporters because China may end up buying more from them instead of the U.S., Rajiv Biswas, Asia Pacific chief economist at IHS Markit, told CNBC in an email.