Donald Trump’s tariff policy stands to hurt the U.S. economy, but the pain will not be felt evenly across the nation. The hardest hit: those states and industries most supportive of Trump.
Farm districts such as [rabid Trump supporter Representative Steve King’s] put Trump in the White House and are the backbone of the GOP majorities in Congress. They’re also uniquely positioned to suffer from a trade war with China. In early April, responding to Trump’s proposed $50 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, China announced or implemented retaliatory levies on roughly $50 billion in U.S. exports, including wheat, corn, cotton, sorghum, tobacco, and soybeans—a direct strike at the deep-red, Trump-friendly heartland.
On Saturday evening, Donald Trump spent an hour and a half talking about his favorite subject, Donald Trump, to his favorite people—those who chanted wildly that he should receive the Nobel Prize for threatening “fire and fury like the world has never seen.” But the result of Trump’s vaunted negotiation skills has been a burgeoning trade war that, like every Trump disaster, has already managed to slide from the front page—far behind faux-outrage over a brief comedy routine.
Still, while the focus of the media has been over the adoring crowds gathered to chant Trump’s name, Bloomberg indicates that the Republican personality cult may be in a small amount of trouble, in places where it least expects it.
While the president’s campaign-trail broadsides against China were a hit with voters in the Rust Belt, they may boomerang on Farm Belt lawmakers such as King. China is the largest importer of soybeans and many other commodities. “There’s a tremendous amount of concern on soybeans and a number of other ag products, too,” says King, whose district has 18,000 soybean farms. “Our grain prices right now are a little more than half what they were at their peak 10 years ago. In my neighborhood, to take a hit in a trade war on top of the depressed commodities prices, it just sends a chill down your spine.”
That’s the kind of drop that can lead to more than just less money in the pocket of Midwestern farmers. It can lead to fewer Midwestern farmers, and accelerate a trend that’s been going on for decades.
The impact goes beyond just farmers raising corn, and beyond just the Midwest.
After China imposed a 179 percent duty on U.S. sorghum on April 17, China-bound ships laden with U.S. sorghum turned around mid-sea. China accounted for some 80 percent of U.S. sorghum exports last year. “
While the number of Americans directly employed on farms has shrunk to less than 2 percent of the population, the dollars connected with these trade losses affect whole communities. They are also not evenly distributed.
Republicans have put themselves in the distinct position of creating a party whose single “position” is “support Donald Trump at all costs.” Which may make it hard for legislators like King to convince his voters that the cost of supporting Trump should include their jobs, farms, and homes.
Midwest farm states will host many of this fall’s tightest races for Senate (Missouri, Indiana, North Dakota) and governor (Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Minnesota). “The farm community is a pretty powerful voting bloc,” says Jennifer Duffy, who tracks Senate and gubernatorial races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. “If they’re unhappy, they turn out in big numbers and can really change things in a hurry.”