By Hope Kirwan
In a warehouse north of Wausau, Wisconsin, thousands of cardboard boxes full of dried ginseng are stacked and waiting at Hsu's Ginseng Enterprises.
It's one of the largest growers of the specialty crop in Wisconsin, where almost all U.S. ginseng is grown. Will Hsu, the company's president, said there's something special about the region's soil and the climate, what the French call "terroir."
"Customers over the last 100 some years have gotten used to this taste and flavor, probably no different than wine connoisseurs feel about Napa Valley or France," he said.
American ginseng is a staple of Chinese medicine, offering a cooling or tonifying effect that contrasts the more fiery ginseng native to Asia. The slightly bitter, herbal-tasting roots are mostly sold dried, but can also be processed into powders and teas.
Hsu sells about half of his annual crop directly from the U.S., offering direct-to-consumer sales online, through duty-free shops at airports or through Chinese pharmacies and grocery stores.
The other half is exported to processors in Asia, mostly in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. But these sales have largely been put on hold this year due to the back and forth exchange of retaliatory tariffs started shortly after President Donald Trump took office.
The return of trade tensions between the U.S. and China is a challenge across the agriculture industry, including major crops like soybeans and beef. But many specialty crop producers rely heavily on exports to China, and have fewer market options when those sales are jeopardized by retaliatory tariffs.
While other types of agricultural producers can try to shift sales to the domestic market or export to other countries, Hsu said ginseng producers don't have that option. He's still holding more than 80% of his crop from 2024.
"There is no other market in the world that will consume this much ginseng," he said.
At the height of the most recent tariff exchange in April, China placed a 117% tariff on U.S. ginseng. But when the two countries agreed to a 90-day pause in May, the import tax fell back to the 32.5% that's been in place since the end of the first Trump administration.
Hsu has encouraged his buyers to take advantage of the current pause, especially one customer that's already paid a deposit on a $1 million shipment. But some companies are holding out hope for a better import tax as a result of recent trade talks between the two countries. Trump announced in early June that a new trade agreement had been reached, but details of the deal have yet to be released.
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