On a scorching day in the American Midwest, Tim Maxwell expresses his fears about the future of agriculture.

This 65-year-old man has been working in the fields since his teens. He now owns a grain and hog farm near Moscow, Iowa, but he's unsure of the future.

“I'm a little worried,” says Maxwell, wearing a baseball cap with a corn company logo.

He worries that American farmers won't be able to sell their crops to international markets like they have in years past, in part because of the fallout from President Trump's tariffs.

“Our crops, harvests, and weather are pretty good, but interest in our markets is low right now,” he notes. “This is going to put a strain on some farmers.”

Others share their fears.

US farm groups warn that growers face challenges this year, primarily due to economic tensions with China.

The two countries have been locked in a trade war since April, causing a sharp drop in Chinese demand for US crops.

As a result, US farmers are hurting, economists say.

The number of small businesses filing for bankruptcy has reached a five-year high, according to data compiled by Bloomberg in July.

With all this economic hardship, rural areas may have turned against Trump. But that doesn't appear to be happening.

Rural areas were among the president's most loyal voting blocs in last year's election, when he won the group's vote by 40 percentage points over Kamala Harris, surpassing his own margins in 2020 and 2016, according to a Pew Research analysis.

Poll experts say the president remains widely popular in those areas.

Maxwell says she will continue to support Trump, despite her financial concerns.

“Our president told us it was going to take time to implement all these tariffs,” she says.

“I'm going to be patient. I believe in our president,” she insists.

On the brink of a trade and financial cliff

If you're looking for a window into life in rural America, the Iowa State Fair is a good place to visit.

This agricultural event attracts more than a million visitors over 10 days.

There's cotton candy, corn dogs for $7, a display of antique tractors, and a competition for the biggest wild boar.

But when the BBC visited last month, the topic of conversation was something else: tariffs.

“A lot of people say (Trump) just uses tariffs as a bargaining chip, to intimidate,” says Gil Gullickson, a South Dakota farm owner and editor of an agriculture magazine.

“But I can say that history shows tariffs don't end well,” he added.

In April, in what he called “Liberation Day,” Trump imposed tariffs on most of the world, including a 145 percent tariff on China.

In response, China slapped a retaliatory 125 percent tariff on US goods, dealing a severe blow to farmers in the Midwest—known as the Corn Belt—many of whom rely on exports to China to sell their crops.

Last year, Chinese companies bought $12.7 billion worth of US soybeans, mostly to feed their livestock.

September is harvest season, and the American Soybean Association (ASA) warned that China's orders for the commodity are far below what they should be at this time high of year.

The tariffs have fluctuated dramatically since they were introduced, and the uncertainty is hard on farmers, says Christopher Wolf, a professor of agricultural economics at Cornell University.

“China is so big that when they buy something, it matters, and when they don't, it matters,” he said.

Fertilizer costs have also skyrocketed, in part because of trade disputes with Canada. Canada has raised the price of potash, a salt imported by US farmers to use in fertilizer.

Jon Tester, a former Democratic senator from Montana and a third-generation farmer, told a US news network earlier this month: “With all these tariffs the president has put on us, it's disrupted our supply chain and increased the cost of new equipment.”

“Those who are starting out in agriculture, those young people who haven't saved for times like this, are going to have problems and many of them will go bankrupt.”

“And if this continues, many people like me will also go bankrupt,” he said.

American farmers are already suffering from high levels of stress. They are three times more likely than average to die by suicide, according to a report by the National Rural Health Association (ASA), a charity that analyzed a period before the Trump presidency.

In a letter to the White House, Caleb Ragland, president of the ASA, warned of a tipping point:“American soybean farmers are on the brink of a trade and financial cliff.”

Trump: “Our farmers are in for a treat”

President Trump's supporters say his tariffs will benefit American farmers in the long run by forcing countries like China to the negotiating table and reaching new deals with the United States.

And they point to other ways the White House has helped farmers.

Over the summer, as part of Trump's tax and spending bill, his administration expanded federal subsidies for farmers by $60 billion and boosted funding for federal food insurance crops.

In his annual address to Congress last March, Trump warned farmers of a “mini-adjustment period” after the tariffs, adding: “Our farmers are in for a treat… To our farmers: Have a great time, I love you.”

Sid Miller, commissioner of the Texas Department of Agriculture, is among those who have praised Trump for what he calls “vital.” support.”

“Finally, we have an administration that puts farmers and ranchers first,” he wrote in a statement earlier this year. “Stand up for farmers, challenge China… and ensure that American producers get a fair shake.”

And the president's tariff strategy may eventually work, according to Michael Langemeier, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University.

But he also worries that the uncertainty is causing long-term damage.

“Your trading partner doesn't know exactly what your position will be next year, because we seem to be changing the rules of the game. That's a problem.”

“Tariffs will make us great again”

There's an old saying in American politics that people “vote with their wallets” and turn on politicians if they appear to be hurting their finances.

Yet despite the financial pressures, The rural Americans we spoke to are sticking with Trump.

Experts say they haven't seen any evidence of a significant shift in support among rural voters since last year. A Pew survey last month found that 53 percent of rural Americans approve of Trump's job performance, much higher than the 38 percent for the country as a whole.

However, an ActiVote survey earlier this month found a small decline in Trump's approval among rural voters, from 59 percent in August to 54 percent in September. But analysts caution against reading too much into these shifts because the number of rural voters included in such polls is so small.

“The data I've seen suggests that Trump still has broad support in rural communities,” says Michael Shepherd, a University of Michigan political science professor who specializes in rural policy.

For some farmers at the state fair, the explanation is simple:They believe the president when he tells them the tariffs will benefit them in the long run.

“We believe the tariffs will eventually bring prosperity back to us,” says John Maxwell, a dairy and cheese farmer in Iowa.

“We gave a lot to China, and [previously] we paid tariffs when we sold to them. We need it to be fair. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.”

Some also cling to the hope that the president will bail out the farmers.

During his first term, Trump gave them a $28 billion amid a tariff dispute with China.

Rural Identity

For Nicholas Jacobs, a professor of politics at Colby College and author of The Rural Voter, there's a deeper reason at play.

Beginning in the 1980s, he says, rural Americans began to feel marginalized and abandoned, while cities benefited from globalization and technological change.

What he calls a “rural identity” formed, based on a shared grievance and opposition to urban liberals.

The Republicans seemed their natural champion, while, he says, the Democrats became “the party of the elite, the technocrats, the well-educated, the urban.”

At the Iowa State Fair, some agree with Professor Colby.

Joan Maxwell, a dairy farmer in Davenport, Iowa, He says his area is too often considered “a backwater” between the country's east and west coasts.

“Generally, the media doesn't see us very well,” he says. “We've been called deplorables, uneducated,” a reference to Hillary Clinton's description of half of Trump's supporters as “a basket case of deplorables.” Maxwell added: “We're often ignored or mocked.” Professor Shepherd of the University of Michigan believes there's another factor. He believes polarization in the United States has reached such a level—with voters in both parties firmly entrenched in their positions—that many are willing to tolerate actions they would previously have rejected, as long as they come from their own political camp. He calls this phenomenon “selective blame attribution.” “They may be very angry about some of the things that are happening, but they're reluctant to blame Trump for them,” he says. “We're giving him a chance, there better be results.” Wolf warns that even if Trump eventually eliminates tariff policy, the damage to American farmers could be long-term due to the restructuring of supply chains.

Some Chinese companies now buy their soybeans from Brazil instead of the United States, he notes, and that may not change anytime soon.

Many of the analysts we spoke to believe that, despite their current support,rural America's backing for Trump is not a blank check.

Shepherd points to the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl disaster of the 1930s, which forced millions of farmers to migrate to American cities, causing a long-term political realignment, though no one expects it to be as this time.

The farm crisis of the 1980s also caused severe thousands of farms to go bankrupt.

At the state fair, Joan Maxwell, the Iowa dairy farmer, makes this clear:

“We're giving him the opportunity to go ahead with the tariffs, but there better be results. I think we need to see something in 18 months or less.”

“We understand the risk, and it better be worth it.”

With additional reporting from Florence Freeman.