Other countries fill in for a loss of US agriculture

Today the source of America’s agripower is rapidly dwindling. The world’s top exporter of corn, soy and wheat for much of the past seven decades, the US is now facing a future of persistent agricultural trade deficits. The shortfall for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 is estimated at $19 billion and is expected to balloon to almost $28 billion in fiscal 2024, according to Agriculture Department forecasts.

This is an historic reversal: Since 1974 the only other annual deficits were in 2019 and 2020, during President Donald Trump’s trade war with China. The trend is driven in part by a shift in Americans’ eating habits—for instance, households today consume more imported produce, such as Mexican avocados and Indian mangoes—but stagnating grain and oilseed exports are also a factor.​

What does a country lose when it stops being the world’s leading food supplier? A bit of its identity: For decades, Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. (ADM), the Chicago-based commodities-trading powerhouse, advertised itself as the “supermarket to the world.” But also global influence: Foreign governments and enterprises reliant on US commodity crops were motivated to play nice to keep the foodstuffs flowing. Yet gradually, as America’s grip on vital agricultural supply chains has slipped, nations with different agendas and alliances have emerged to take its place. “It has diminished US soft power around the world,” says Scott Reynolds Nelson, a history professor at the University of Georgia and author of Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World.

The US now accounts for less than one-third of global soybean exports, moving half the volume of Brazil. On wheat it’s in fourth place, far behind Russia, which is at No. 1. “Look at where Russia exports its grain to, and then look at the people who didn’t sign the UN resolution against Russia. It’s basically the same list,” says Nelson, referring to a meeting held on March 2 of last year in which five countries voted against condemning Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, with 35 nations—including China, India and South Africa—abstaining.