Thai farmer Daeng Donsingha was already worried for her family of nine when rice prices in the world’s second-largest exporter of the staple crashed this year after India resumed exports.
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Now, she is also fretting over the tariffs unleashed by US President Donald Trump, which could slash demand for Thai rice in its most valuable foreign market and create turmoil in an export industry worth billions of dollars.
“The problem is that the price of rice is very low, while other costs such as fertilisers and farmland rent is higher,” the 70-year-old farmer said, after selling her harvest at a rice mill in central Thailand. “I’m losing money.”
Thailand is among Southeast Asian nations hardest hit by Trump’s proposed measures, facing a 36 per cent tariff on goods unless ongoing negotiations are successful before the US president’s moratorium on the tariffs ends in July.
“If the US imposes the tariff, our jasmine rice will be too expensive to compete,” said Chookiat Ophaswongse, honorary president of the Thai Rice Exporters Association.
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Last year, Thailand shipped 849,000 tonnes of rice to the United States, mainly of its most expensive fragrant jasmine variety, worth 28.03 billion baht (US$735 million), according to the association.