On Wednesday, three state Farm Bureau presidents told administration leaders, including President Trump, that farmers, hit hard by retaliatory tariffs, need open markets soon. “There’s a fairly short runway,” said Scott VanderWal of South Dakota in a video posted by the largest U.S. farm organization. Russell Boening, head of the Texas Farm Bureau, said administration officials believe negotiations with Canada will conclude successfully soon and has hopes of progress on China in the near future.
“Canada is coming along. We’ll see how it all works out,” Trump said separately. “We’ve done very well in our negotiation with China, but we’re not prepared to make the deal that they’d like to make. We’ll continue to talk to China. I have great respect for President Xi. He’s really a very special guy. But right now, we just can’t make that deal.”
Several farm groups were invited to a meeting with Vice President Mike Pence, joined briefly by Trump, said the American Farm Bureau Federation. Trump expressed “his appreciation for agriculture and the support he gets out in the countryside,” said Illinois Farm Bureau president Richard Guebert. He said the group encouraged the administration to keep working on trade agreements.
“We talked about China and the importance of that,” said VanderWal, who is vice president of the AFBF as well as South Dakota state president. “I’m hoping a deal with China could be less than a year away.”
Boening said farm leaders “got assurances today they think Canada will be right in line, right along with Mexico.” Along with China, administration officials also mentioned the European Union and Japan as potential partners in new trade deals. Canada, Mexico, China, and the EU are the four largest customers for U.S. farm exports.