Farmers and ranchers are awaiting China’s response to tariffs recently imposed by the Biden administration, fairly wondering if they will be the targets of retaliation as has been the case in the past.

President Biden recently invoked Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 to put tariffs on electric vehicles, solar cells, lithium-ion batteries, battery parts, semiconductors, ship-to-shore cranes, surgical masks and several other products.

The president needs to throw an election-year bone to auto workers and their employers. The United Auto Workers recently won big contracts from Detroit. At the same time, government climate policy is winding down the auto makers’ profitable lines of gas and diesel SUVs and trucks, while forcing the manufacture of expensive electric vehicles that no one is buying.

Eliminating cheap Chinese EVs and solar cell imports seems like the ticket.

Imposing tariffs is a tit-for-tat business in world trade. But, being a huge exporter and a relatively small importer, the list of Chinese retaliatory targets is not large. The one thing they do buy is U.S. farm products.

It is well-plowed ground.

In 2018, in the midst of President Trump’s trade wars with everyone, the administration put tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum.

The Chinese shot back with tariffs on hundreds of U.S. farm products. Soybean farmers were particularly hard hit, but dairy, fruit, beef and wheat producers in the Pacific Northwest also were impacted.

The value of U.S. agricultural exports to China dropped to $9 billion in 2018 from $19 billion the year before, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Some of the tariffs remain in place. Farmers continue to export far fewer apples and cherries to China than in 2017, Northwest Horticultural Council director of export programs Riley Bushue said.

The new tariffs invite more retaliatory tariffs, he said. “It’s extremely frustrating and deeply concerning for growers,” he said. “We really can’t afford more retaliation in the markets.”

Farmers should expect more upheavals in the weeks ahead. While not expressly promising reprisals, the Chinese government chided the administration for claiming that it is unfairly subsidizing electric vehicles and batteries as the U.S. is pumping billions into those same industries under the Inflation Reduction Act.

“There’s a Chinese saying for that logic, ‘The magistrate allows himself to set fire, but bans everyone else from lighting candles.’ Or, to use a U.S. expression, ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’” China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Wang Wenbin said.

Over the last few years, Chinese purchases have rebounded to nearly $41 billion a year. That makes China the largest importer of U.S. farm goods. That gives it the ability to inflict a lot of pain across rural America if it chooses to retaliate.