Sharon and Ken Schneeberger have seen how the United States’ trade fight with China, a country across an ocean and thousands of miles from the Midwest, is altering their lives.
Sharon Schneeberger’s brother, who’s grown cotton and wheat for 40 years in Oklahoma, has seen his crop prices drop by about 20 percent, as global leaders raise the stakes, imposing new tariff hikes on each other’s goods.
“As he says, ‘That’s my profit,’” Sharon Schneeberger said. “He is really thinking about what is his next step.”
For Ken Schneeberger, director of the College of Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources’ international programs, he’s seen the tension between the U.S. and China stall six Chinese scholars’ visas for a scientific cooperation exchange.
“They can’t get visas,” Ken Schneeberger said. “So it’s playing out ... .”
“Here,” Sharon Schneeberger said, finishing his sentence. “We see it.”
The Schneebergers were two of dozens that attended a panel of experts and politicians on Thursday night to hear them discuss how U.S.-China relations are affecting the Midwest. Gathered in the Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy in Jesse Hall, attendees heard analysis from:
- Bob Holden, chairman of the Midwest U.S.-China Association and a former governor of Missouri.
- Sheena Chestnut Greitens, assistant political science professor and Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution senior fellow.
- And Cooper Drury, associate dean of the College of Arts & Science and political science professor.
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