Examining Biden’s Farm Bankruptcy Claim

Joe Biden claimed that farm bankruptcies increased last year “due largely to Trump’s unmitigated disaster of a tariff war.” International trade was a factor, but there were additional reasons that predate the trade war — such as years of relatively weak prices, declining incomes and rising farm debt, according to agricultural economists and government reports.

“The bankruptcy wave this year has roots that go back several years,” Chad E. Hart, an associate professor of economics and crop markets specialist at Iowa State University, told us in an email.

The former...