Stephens said soy growers and the rural community will see the effects of the trade dispute for years to come.
Statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that China is the largest export market for U.S. agricultural products. Total U.S. agricultural shipments to the country reached $23.8 billion last year, accounting for 17 percent of the U.S. total.
With exports increasing by 700 percent from 2000 to 2017, the fast-rising living standards in China and the switch to a consumption-based economy were an attractive proposition for U.S. farmers and ranchers－a prospect now endangered by the tit-for-tat tariffs.
On Aug 9, Han Jun, vice-minister of agriculture and rural affairs, described China and the U.S. as "strongly complementary in agricultural trade", but he warned that Trump's trade war may force China to look for alternative partners, and once that is done, U.S. farmers may find it hard to regain their market share in China.
China-U.S. economic interdependence stretches far beyond agriculture to almost every sector of the economy.
Last year, Boeing forecast that Chinese airlines would buy 7,240 commercial jets worth $1.1 trillion in the next two decades.
China has announced retaliatory tariffs on small planes, not on large Boeing jets. But as the trade war escalates, such immunity may not last. A deteriorating trade relationship between the two countries could spell opportunities for Airbus, Boeing's major rival in the Chinese market.
China is Boeing's largest commercial market, with one in four planes delivered to Chinese customers. The International Air Transport Association has predicted that by 2024, China will replace the U.S. as the world's largest aviation market by passenger numbers.
China and the U.S. have seen their economies become increasingly interdependent since the late 1970s when China began its reform and opening-up drive. A rapidly growing export-oriented economy, fueled partly by foreign direct investment, has provided cheap Chinese exports to U.S. consumers.
General Motors sold more than 4 million vehicles in China last year, more than the 3 million it sold in the U.S..
China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001 accelerated its integration with the world economy, making the country a vital part of global supply chains, including for many U.S. companies.
By the end of last year, the cumulative value of U.S. foreign direct investment transactions in China had passed $256 billion, and the cumulative value of Chinese FDI in the U.S., a relatively recent phenomenon, reached $140 billion, according to the Rhodium Group in New York, which tracks two-way investment.
Bilateral trade in goods between the two countries has expanded more than 200-fold since 1979, reaching $636 billion last year, with a $375 billion surplus in China's favor. But the U.S. ran a $38.5 billion surplus in services trade with China in 2017, and that figure is expected to rise rapidly as China further opens up its financial services sector.
A study by Oxford Economics last year found that China-U.S. trade supports 2.6 million jobs in the U.S., and trade with China saves an average family in the U.S. $850 a year.
