Sen. Jon Tester warned Wednesday that overseas retaliation against President Trump’s national security tariffs are crushing U.S. agricultural producers, and putting some at risk of going belly up if the trade war isn’t settled soon.
Speaking on the Senate floor, Tester said wheat, oilseeds and other crops will be coming in soon, but said all are doomed to be blocked by other countries because of the retaliatory tariffs they imposed. China, Canada, Mexico, many European countries, and others have imposed tariffs on U.S. farm exports after Trump put tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum.
[Opinion: American farmers are the real losers of Trump’s trade war]
“The fact is, there is no certainty in any of those crops right now,” Tester said on the Senate floor. “Why? Because our farmers and our ranchers are being used as a pawn in a trade war that I can guarantee you not one of them asked for.”
He said the trade war is threatening to kill off export markets that took “generations to develop.”
“In some cases, Japan for example, it has taken multiple generations to establish these export markets,” Tester warned. “If we lose them, it’ll take many generations to get them back.”
Trump has recently attacked Tester for helping to shoot down his nominee to be the next secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Trump at one point threatened to hurt his re-election chances by revealing “things” about him that aren’t known.
On the Senate floor, Tester took care to say he supports Trump’s broader goal of equalizing the rules of trade. But he said the way the battle has played out so far is bad for farmers.
“I get it. I think the president’s right when he talks about holding China accountable,” he said.
“But to put on tariffs where retaliation comes on ag products is not the right direction to go,” Tester added. “You can get their attention by other ways.”
He said that conversations he’s had in his home state indicate that some family farms will be in real trouble over the next 12 to 18 months unless the trade war is settled somehow.
“So I ask, what is the endgame?” Tester asked. “Because if this continues, I had an ag banker told me that family farms and ranchers have about 18 months before they have to start liquidizing.”
