WAVERLY, Minn. — Minnesota farmer Dan Glessing isn’t ready to get too upset over President Donald Trump’s trade wars.

Farm country voted heavily for Trump last November. Now Glessing and many other farmers are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward the Republican president’s disputes with China and other international markets.

China normally would buy about one row out of every four of the Minnesota soybean crop and took in nearly $13 billion worth of soybeans from the U.S. as a whole last year. More than half of U.S. soybeans are exported internationally, with roughly half of those going to China, so it’s a critical market.

Trump last month raised U.S. tariffs on products from China to 145%, and China retaliated with 125%. But the recent announcement of a 90-day truce between the two countries backed up the reluctance of many farmers to hit the panic button.

More good news came in an updated forecast from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that projected higher corn exports and only slightly lower corn prices. The report also predicted somewhat lower soybean exports but higher domestic consumption, resulting in higher prices. Soybean futures surged.

After he finished planting his soybean crop last week, Glessing said he was excited by the news and hopes to see more progress. But he said he wasn’t really surprised.

Tariffs, weather and other uncertainty

On a bright, sunny day recently, as he began planting soybeans, Glessing said tariffs were only one of the things he’s worried about — and not necessarily the biggest. Farming, after all, is an enterprise built on loose soil, the whims of weather and other uncontrollable factors.

“Am I concerned about tariffs? Yeah. I mean, there’s uncertainty that comes with that,” Glessing said. “Is that the number one driving factor in these poor commodity prices the last two years? No.”

As he steered his 25-year-old Case IH tractor over a gently rolling field near the town of Waverly, he towed a planter that inserted his seeds through the stubble of last year’s corn crop. As he laid down the long rows, he rumbled past a pond where wild swans paddled about.

Riding shotgun was Georgie the Corgi, who alternated between roaming around his cab and half-dozing at his feet.

Perhaps more skeptical than Glessing is Matt Griggs, one of many soybean farmers in Tennessee paying close attention to the trade war. Last week, he said the ripple effects on farmers might still be coming.

“We’re only on a 90-day pause,” Griggs said. “Who knows what is going to come after that?”

Joe Janzen, an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois, said the commodity markets have largely shaken off the initial shock of the trade war, including Trumps’ declaration of April 2 as “Liberation Day,” when he announced stiff worldwide tariffs.

“Our markets have largely rebounded and are back where we were around April Second,” Janzen said. “Tariffs have not had a major impact on prices yet.”

Even something that might seem like good news — ideal planting conditions across much of the Midwest — has its downside. The potential for bigger crops sent prices downward, Glessing noted. High interest rates, seed and fertilizer costs pose additional challenges.

“There’s so many other factors besides just tariffs and my market price,” Glessing said.

Looking for signs of progress

But Glessing said he was encouraged by that morning’s news of a trade deal with the United Kingdom and said he hopes the current uncertainty in talks with China and other countries ultimately leads to better trade deals going forward.

Glessing had finished planting his corn the day before on the other half of a field that he rents from his father’s cousin, split between 45 acres of corn and 45 acres of beans. It’s at the farm where his grandfather grew up, and it’s part of the approximately 700 acres he plants on average. He locked in those planting decisions months earlier as he made deals for seeds, fertilizer and other supplies.

Back on his “home farm” closer to Waverly — where his late grandfather’s house, made of local brick, still stands and a cacophony of house sparrow songs filled the air — Glessing was pleased to spot the first signs of corn he had planted there about 10 days earlier poking above the soil.

Waverly is about an hour west of Minneapolis. Its most famous resident was Democratic former Vice President Hubert Humphrey. It’s in the congressional district represented by Republican House Majority Whip Tom Emmer.

Glessing’s post as president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau puts him in close touch with other influential politicians, too. He and his wife, Seena, were Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s guests at the Capitol for Trump’s inauguration in January. Glessing declined to say who he voted for.

The Glessings have four kids, milk about 75 dairy cows, and grow corn, soybeans and alfalfa on a combination of parcels they own or rent. He uses the alfalfa and corn primarily to feed his cows. He sells his soybeans to a processing plant in Mankato, where some of them become soybean meal he adds to his animal feed. The milk from his cows goes to a co-op cheese plant in Litchfield that sells internationally.

Because Glessing has local buyers locked in and doesn’t directly export his crops, he’s partially cushioned from the volatility of world markets. But he’s quick to point out that everything in the agricultural economy is interconnected.