Farmers for Free Trade, a bipartisan campaign to rebuild support for trade at the grassroots level, released a new report highlighting the significant impact Chinese retaliation from steel and aluminum tariffs will have on U.S. wine, almond, walnut, pork, cherry, and many other commodity producers. The report also shows how economies of certain states will be hit hardest as a result. This new report is a part of the ongoing effort by Farmers for Free Trade to illustrate the negative impacts tariffs on American agriculture and amplify the voices of the many farmers who will be hurt by them.
“The tariffs described in this report are a tax on American farmers. They increase the cost of exporting, depress the prices of farm futures, and end up hurting the bottom lines of farmers in states across the country,” said Senators Richard Lugar and Max Baucus, Co-Chairs or Farmers for Free Trade. “They also incentivize trading partners like China to look to other markets for their imports. That means that trading relationships that took decades to develop can evaporate overnight. And as many farmers and trade experts know, once you lose an export market it doesn’t come back immediately, in fact, it often takes many years for trading relationships to recover.”
Some of the top states impacted include California, Iowa, Washington, Missouri, and North Carolina. Retaliatory tariffs from the Section 232 trade action on steel and aluminum are 15 percent on all products excluding pork, which faces a 25% tariff.
Farmers for Free Trade will join with farmers from across California and the California Secretary of Food and Agriculture on Thursday, April 26th in Sacramento for an event that will highlight the negative impacts of these tariffs on California exports.
