It is easy to think of tariffs and trade wars in purely academic and historical terms. But tariff talk from President Trump has started causing real economic damage, and it’s already given an excellent political platform to an otherwise awful candidate.
In the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., had a rare opportunity to savage this administration when Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross came to testify.
[Also read: Trump threatens 20 percent tariff on European cars]
McCaskill even managed to sound conservative while slamming Ross, this administration, and their tariffs for “picking winners and losers on very technical bases.” It’s a message that will play well in Missouri because that state is getting the worst of this trade war.
Most of the nails in this country come from a little company in Missouri called Mid Continent Nail Corporation and, as McCaskill explained to Ross, the White House is killing them slowly.
“So far, in response to the tariff, they have lost almost half of their business in one month due to price,” she said. “They’ve now laid off 60 of their 500 employees, they’ve idled their most sophisticated production facility in Poplar Bluff, and they are expected to cut 200 more jobs by the end of July.”
If something doesn’t change, if steel prices keep rising because of the tariff, they won’t survive. According to McCaskill, company executives expect they will be “out of business by Labor Day.”
That factory isn’t the only casualty in Missouri either. The state has also been pummeled by both U.S. duties on foreign steel and suffering foreign duties on Missouri agriculture. Farmers are being destroyed by the economic ignorance of protectionism.
China announced new tariffs on $50 billion worth of products like pork and chicken and soybeans. In Missouri, farmers with soybeans in the ground have watched future prices for that crop drop by almost 15 percent in the last two months as a direct result.
McCaskill might find an opportunity in all this carnage. While her ties to Hillary Clinton and her liberal voting record won’t endear her to Missouri voters, a bad economy could curb enthusiasm among supporters of her Republican opponent, state Attorney General Josh Hawley. So long as agriculture prices keep dropping — never mind if factories start closing — McCaskill will get a chance to play the conservative on trade, and that could help her keep her seat.
