With a visit to corn-and-pork-producing Iowa on Thursday, President Trump will have a chance to speak directly to farmers, a loyal block of supporters who have grown increasingly worried about the impact of Trump tariffs on their wallets. Farm groups have suggested repeatedly the administration find alternatives to tariffs for settling trade disputes but they have been willing to give the president time to show results.
Trump will be the headline speaker at mid-day roundtable in Dubuque, an industrial city of nearly 60,000 people on the Mississippi River in northeastern Iowa. It will be his first visit since the 2016 presidential caucuses. The Deere and Co. “Dubuque Works,” opened as a farm tractor factory in 1947 and now covering two square miles, builds construction and forestry machinery.
“I think the use of tariffs to try to bring leverage…we need to look at other options,” said Kent Bacus, international trade director of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, during a CNBC interview on Monday. “If we don’t see things turn around, this could have negative repercussions for us.” Bacus credited Trump for China’s decision in 2017 to end a 13-year ban on U.S. beef imports but said China’s retaliatory tariffs, at a cumulative 37 percent, were likely to effectively end sales for the interim.
Canada, Mexico and the European Union also have announced retaliatory duties on U.S. farm and manufactured goods in response to steep U.S. tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.
Trump has vowed to shield American agriculture from Chinese retaliation. At his second “Made in America” showcase, President Trump displayed a green-and-yellow cap with the legend “Make Our Farmers Great Again” on Monday. “We’re working right now on this right here,” he said, holding the cap in his right hand.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue says he will decide around Labor Day, as harvest nears, whether to implement an aid package to help farmers hurt by retaliatory tariffs. Details have been kept under wraps.
“It could get worse and that’s my fear,” said former USDA chief economist Joe Glauber on the “Adams on Agriculture” program. “My big concern…you don’t want this to get into the fall.” At that point, growers in Brazil could adjust their mixture of crops to profit from U.S. woes. Early this month, the USDA projected Brazil would expand its soybean plantings and eclipse the United States as the world’s largest soybean grower in the year ahead.
U.S. cattle, hog and poultry producers are expanding production at the same time that tit-for-tat tariffs will foreclose some export sales. Grain and soybean farmers also are looking for customers after a string of bumper crops. Exports usually generate 20 cents of each $1 of farm income. Commodity prices fell sharply in late may when tariffs came into effect.
“Farmers and ranchers are looking for reasons to be optimistic about the current trade situation. We need a win,” said president Zippy Duvall of the largest U.S. farm group, the American Farm Bureau Federation. “We must wrap up this trade war quickly, complete the negotiations with Mexico and Canada, and open more markets by negotiating deals with Japan, the UK and other trade partners around the world.”
The monthly Cold Storage report showed 2.5 billion pounds of poultry and red meat were in U.S. freezer plants on June 30, up 5.5 percent from one year earlier, according to USDA data.
“Every week, angst grows,” said Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds in a Des Moines Register story. The newspaper said Chinese tariffs could cost growers in the Hawkeye State $1 billion.