The order came in April. China’s government instructed farmers in the country’s northeastern breadbasket region to grow more soybeans. But soybean fields lay empty in the village of Sandaogou. It has been a dry spring. China is the world’s largest consumer of soybeans, a key product for making things like oil and pig feed, and is America’s biggest buyer of the beans. But China has raised tariffs on a number of items including soybeans shipped from the U.S., in retaliation against new import duties on Chinese goods imposed by the Trump administration. On Monday, President Trump ordered his trade representative to draft a new list of $200 billion in Chinese goods for further tariffs, in a sharp escalation of the trade fight between the world’s top two economies. In May, China’s agriculture ministry said the country will reduce its soybean imports for the first time in 15 years. To make up for part of the loss, the central government ordered local authorities to set aside 1.6 million acres of land to grow more soybeans. The country already cultivates nearly 21 million acres of the crop. China produced 14.2 million metric tons of soybeans last year and imported almost 100 million more to meet domestic demand, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A third of those imports were from the U.S.