Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 9/27/18

As the U.S. ag sector reels from low commodity prices and retaliatory tariffs, a key question in farm world is whether Trump's hard-line trade strategy will eventually yield dividends — in other words, will short-term pain lead to long-term gain? Trump and Heitkamp, who talk about trade as much as almost anyone in Washington, offered starkly different answers to that question in separate public remarks.

The president's case: On Wednesday, he predicted his trade moves would open up new markets for U.S. agricultural products that have been closed off for years. "I'm opening up markets like nobody's ever opened markets before," Trump told reporters in New York.

He also went off on China during a U.N. Security Council meeting for "attempting to interfere" in the upcoming U.S. midterm elections by slapping retaliatory tariffs on American food and ag products, as POLITICO's Ramsen Shamon writes. Farmers have made up a central part of Trump's political base, making them an easy target for other countries seeking leverage over the president.

Wednesday Trump tweet: "China is actually placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers, made to look like news. That's because we are beating them on Trade, opening markets, and the farmers will make a fortune when this is over!"
Not so fast: Heitkamp told a group of produce-growers Wednesday that losing access to countries like China amid the tariff standoff will be a long-term disaster if foreign buyers move on to other sources of crops like soybeans and don't come back.

"That's a market that our growers through the checkoff program have grown over 30 years," the North Dakota Democrat said at an event hosted by the United Fresh Produce Association. "Thirty years of convincing them that we can be the reliable, high-quality, lower-cost provider."

"It takes less than two years to lose a market," she told the group.

China has already sought to replace its massive U.S. soybean supply by turning to other major exporters like Brazil, lowering the protein content of its animal feed and leaning on alternative crops.