American Farmers’ Attitudes toward China and the U.S.–China Trade Dispute: A Mediated Relationship

Abstract The trade dispute between the U.S. and China significantly cut agricultural product sales to a major foreign market and drastically hurt Midwest farmers’ pocketbooks. To explore Midwest farmers’ attitudes toward China and the trade dispute, we surveyed 693 farmers in Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota. We found that farmers’ attitudes toward China were generally unfavourable; farmers were also somewhat pessimistic about the outcome of the trade dispute. Additionally, we found that farmers’ attitudes toward the trade dispute were driven by their disposition toward China, the information they obtained from interpersonal and media sources, the perceived credibility of media sources, their propensity to take on risks, income, and years of farming. Farmers’ attitudes toward China, on the other hand, were influenced by the degree to which they saw information sources as credible. We also found that farmers’ attitudes toward China played a mediating effect in the positive impact of media credibility on farmers’ attitudes toward the trade dispute.