Throughout recent weeks and months, U.S. President Donald Trump has sharpened the aggression of his trade policy, having at this point announced tariffs against a whole host of countries around the world ranging from Canada and the European Union to China. The tariffs have sparked unsurprising significant backlash that has come in the form of repeated and varied moves towards retaliatory tariffs on the part of U.S. trading partners; one country to take such a move is China.
Now, an Iowan newspaper is sounding the alarm about the impact retaliatory Chinese tariffs could have on American farmers. Billions of dollars worth of soybeans grown in the U.S. are sold to China each year, and with retaliatory Chinese tariffs on imported American soybeans in place, farmers in Iowa could lose some $624 million to the measures.
The Des Moines Register explains as much in part via the testimony of Iowa State University economist Chad Hart.
As he explained, it’s not as though Iowan farmers can simply sell to other markets in order to avoid the retaliatory Chinese tariffs imposed in response to Trump’s aggression.
He said:
‘Any tariff or tax put in place will have a significant impact, not only to the U.S. soybean market but to Iowa’s, because we’re such a large producer. It will slow down the market. Even with the tariffs in place, we will ship a lot of soybeans to China. It just won’t be nearly the amount we did before. It’s likely to still be our largest market even with these tariffs in place.’
Ironically, Trump has touted the tariffs he has imposed on at least some of the countries he’s targeted as beneficial to American farmers. He has attacked the supposedly poor treatment they’ve suffered at the hands of countries like Canada, but instead of sticking to diplomatic negotiations, he’s throwing sticks of dynamite at the whole thing.
In response, American farmers and industry interests are now facing tariffs on exported goods ranging from soybeans to electric cars, both of which are covered by a set of retaliatory tariffs that China announced this weekend. The Chinese newspaper known as the Global Times decried the United States as a “provocateur” in their reporting about the measures.
The negative impacts on the soybean industry explored by The Des Moines Register on Saturday could no doubt be said to be mirrored in other industries as well. That’s how tariffs work — they stifle growth through making it more costly to do business.
If Trump thinks that he’s going to be able to get other countries, whether the nation in question is China or Canada, to just fall in line with his wishes for their trade policies towards the United States through strong-arming them, he’s delusional. He’s touted the success of his modus operandi in the case of the threat posed by North Korean weapons, but what good has come there, really? He claimed we would be stopping military exercises around the Korean peninsula and the world got more of the same old, same old empty unverifiable pledge for denuclearization.
In the same way, any benefits are outweighed by the actual grim reality of the trade situation explored this weekend by The Des Moines Register, which reaches well over 100,000 people.
Featured Image via Andrew Harrer/ Bloomberg via Getty Images
