A ‘soybean farmer’ himself, Treasury Sec. Bessent said he’s feeling ‘pain’ from China, too

By Elisabeth Buchwald, Alicia Wallace, CNN

(CNN) — Hundreds of thousands of American soybean farmers are suffering from a monthslong effective embargo by China as part of a global trade war. Among them: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

“I’m actually a soybean farmer,” Bessent said over the weekend in an ABC News interview. “I have felt this pain, too,” he told Martha Raddatz.

China, usually the largest buyer of American soybeans by far, significantly increased tariffs on the legumes in May after President Donald Trump enacted import levies on Chinese goods. Since then, China hasn’t purchased any American soybeans.

But the pain from that de facto boycott might not be shared equally. Many soybean farmers rely on their crops for most of their income. That doesn’t appear to be the case for Bessent, whom Forbes estimates has a net worth of around $600 million.

Bessent, the farmer?

Bessent owns farmland that grows soybeans and corn across North Dakota. The land is valued at between $5 million and $25 million and generates an annual income of between $100,000 and $1 million, according to financial disclosure forms he submitted ahead of his confirmation hearing and which were amended in May.

That income comes “through a revenue sharing agreement, which is tied to the price of the crops produced,” his financial disclosure form states.

The Office of Government Ethics has given Bessent until December 15 to divest from the farmland, among other assets he disclosed that are considered to be potential conflicts of interest.

“At this point, just 4% of my required divestitures remain, much of which is farmland, an inherently highly illiquid asset,” Bessent said in a statement provided to CNN. At the same time, his efforts to sell soybean-producing farmland could be hindered by the current trade climate that’s pushed soybean prices down.

“While any amount of money is immaterial compared with the honor of serving the American people, the Secretary has written off or experienced opportunity losses of nearly $100 million since assuming office,” a Treasury spokesperson added in a statement to CNN. “As mutually agreed upon between the Secretary, Treasury Ethics, and OGE, he looks forward to being in full compliance by December 15th.”

‘We might have lost our soybean market’

Jake Benike, 36, who grows corn and soybeans with his father, Gary, on their family’s 1,700-acre farm in Elgin, Minnesota, is contemplating a departure from the business too, but for far different reasons.

Despite losing Chinese customers, Benike said he didn’t get “completely hammered” because favorable weather gave them more bushels to sell elsewhere.

“But now we’re making decisions for next year, and it’s like, ‘Did we lose our market?’” he said. “If this is what the new price is going to be … it’s not very appealing to try to grow these beans.”

The decision whether to continue growing soybeans, as his family has for the past six decades, largely hinges on the outcome of a high-stakes meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping later this week, Benike’s wife, Beth, told CNN.

Bessent, who met with Chinese trade negotiators over the weekend, said, “I believe when the announcement of the deal with China is made public, that our soybean farmers will feel very good about what’s going on both for this season and the coming seasons for several years.”

That couldn’t be further from how Benike is feeling now. “We might have lost our soybean market,” he said. “I might be telling my grandkids that I used to grow soybeans and now that’s just something that South America does.”

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