In March, President Trump began taking bold action to hold China and any other bad actors accountable for unfair trade practices. After first imposing tariffs on certain steel and aluminum imports, the president followed suit in later weeks by threatening to impose additional tariffs on $150 billion worth of Chinese products.
Just as members of the president’s own Cabinet predicted, China is fighting back, and the very people Trump has vowed to protect time and again – America’s farmers and rural families – are now caught in the crosshairs.
In response to Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs, China made good on its threat to levy tariffs on $3 billion worth of U.S. goods, including a 25 percent tariff on pork and a 15 percent tariff on fruit, nuts and other agricultural products. The Trump administration has said it is working on a plan to protect farmers from the devastating consequences of China’s retaliation. But in the absence of action, these tariffs are already having a negative effect on agriculture jobs and families across America whose very livelihoods have been imperiled.
According to a recently-released study from The Trade Partnership, these retaliatory tariffs could wind up costing the U.S. more than 500,000 jobs, including 24,000 in the agriculture industry. Considering the steel and aluminum the tariffs are only expected to create 30,000 jobs, these misguided actions will result in a net job loss of roughly 470,000.
As farmers prepare for a very busy time of the season and continue to cope with declining farm incomes, they’re also having to brace for what’s to come next on trade: retaliation from China that matches the “same scale, same intensity” as President Trump’s tariffs. Less than 24 hours after President Trump outlined his latest actions on trade, China threatened to levy an additional 25 percent tariff on $50 billion of U.S. goods such as soybeans – a devastating blow for the U.S. farmers who exported nearly $14 billion in soybeans to China last year. Despite talks between both countries, threats of even more tariffs have continued. These countermeasures will have crippling consequences for America’s food and agriculture industries, which stand to lose thousands more jobs, millions more customers and billions more dollars as a result of these actions.
With so much at stake, it is now more important than ever that the Trump Administration refocus its energy on the issue of improving and expanding our trade agreements, namely the North American Free Trade Agreement. The announcement last week that President Trump successfully negotiated revisions to the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, or KORUS, is a positive development for rural America and demonstrates there is a way forward for NAFTA.
NAFTA’s contribution to our economy cannot be overstated. It has added $127 billion in annual economic activity and supports 43 million American jobs. This has greatly benefited our food and agriculture industries, which exported $43 billion worth of products to our trading partners in Mexico and Canada in 2016, making up a quarter of all U.S. agriculture exports that year.
It is encouraging that President Trump and his trade team are working to finalize this vital agreement and hopefully that continues in the weeks ahead. Delivering a modernized NAFTA will further enhance our ability to sell home-grown goods to customers around the world, while keeping prices lower, paychecks higher and creating more domestic jobs.
Alternatively, without NAFTA, our centuries-old food and agriculture sectors, the millions of people they employ and our economy will suffer enormously. As Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., recently put it, “While NAFTA, 23 years old, surely could be improved a little bit, it would be a huge mistake for the neighborhood and for our economy, not to mention the other two economies, to get out of NAFTA.”
We couldn’t agree more. Farmers and families across rural America appreciate President Trump’s desire to stand up to bad actors, level the playing field for workers and businesses, and strengthen our economy. His most powerful tool for meeting those objectives is not far-reaching tariffs that result in retaliation and hurt many of his supporters. It’s continuing to modernize trade agreements that expand access to critical markets and empower the U.S. with the tools to compete and win around the world.
Casey Guernsey is a seventh-generation farmer, former Missouri state legislator and chairman of the Agri-Business Committee. He is spokesman for an effort called “Retaliation Hurts Rural Families,” a project of Americans for Farmers & Families.’
