"We're in a hell of a mess here," said Chris Gibbs, an Ohio farmer with over 500 acres of corn, soybeans, wheat, and alfalfa hay, plus a 90-head cow-calf operation. "A severe cash flow mess. A working capital mess."

Gibbs, a lifelong Republican turned advocate for rural America, is one of many Ohio growers watching the 2025 tariff wave cripple farm economics again. In Shelby County, as combines roll through fields, farmers are grappling with soaring input costs and evaporating markets, thanks to another round of Trump-imposed trade barriers.

"It's farmageddon," say some, as punitive tariffs return with devastating impact. The Trump tariffs-levied on key agricultural partners and critical farming inputs-have made American crops less competitive abroad while jacking up the cost of fertilizer, steel, aluminum, and equipment. This double hit is pushing family farms-which make up 87% of Ohio's ag sector-to the brink.

Joe Logan, a fifth-generation farmer and former head of the Ohio Farmers Union, summed up the crisis:
"Everything we buy-from phosphate and potash to herbicides and machine parts-is up 50% over the past decade. Meanwhile, crop revenues are down 40%."

Family farms are losing money, while corporate agribusiness continues to profit. Interest rates remain high, bankruptcies are climbing, and global trust in U.S. ag exports is eroding.

The 2025 tariffs echo the economic chaos of 2018, when Trump's original trade war sparked retaliatory tariffs from key buyers like China, crushing export demand. In a single summer, U.S. soybean prices fell 20%, devastating farmers who had spent decades cultivating international relationships.

"We lost the trust we'd built over 30 years," said Gibbs. "China was our biggest soybean buyer. Now, they're not buying a single bean from us."

In fact, China-once responsible for 54% of U.S. soybean exports-has bought zero so far in 2025. Their purchases have gone to Brazil and Argentina instead. U.S. ag exports are flatlining, and commodity prices-corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton-are now below the cost of production.

Despite widespread discontent, many farmers still support Trump, hoping for promised subsidies or trade deals that never arrive.
But others, like Gibbs, have lost patience.

"This is worse than 2018," he said. "We've got sky-high input costs and no recovery from Covid. Tariffs on seed, fertilizer, machinery-they've all made farming even more expensive."

With farm profitability collapsing, Gibbs shares a grim truth with his son:
"Until you wake up at 2:30 in the morning with sweat pouring down your face, you haven't really experienced what it is to farm. I'm 49 years in. It's hard."