GOP wary of political fallout from trade war with China
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Ana Swanson
WASHINGTON — As President Trump moves to fulfill one of the central promises of his campaign — to get tough on an ascendant China — he faces a potential rebellion from a core constituency: farmers and other agricultural producers who could suffer devastating losses in a trade war.
Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on Chinese goods came with a presidential declaration that trade wars are good and easily won. But the action has injected damaging uncertainty into the economy as Republicans are already struggling to maintain their hold on Congress in a difficult election year.
While the battle for control of the House will be waged in large part in the suburbs, rural districts in southern Illinois, Iowa, Arkansas and Missouri could prove important. And control of the Senate could come down to Republican efforts to unseat Democrats in North Dakota, Indiana, Missouri and Montana — all states staring down the barrels of a trade war’s guns.
With farmers angry and worried as China threatens to retaliate, many Republicans find themselves torn between loyalty to a president who remains broadly popular in rural states and the demands of constituents, especially farmers, to oppose his tariffs.
In North Dakota, a major soybean-producing state, Rep. Kevin Cramer, a Republican who is running for the Senate, sounded restrained last week when he urged Trump to “take a more measured approach” to China. By Friday, he sounded panicked.
“I contacted @SecretarySonny to urge him to use every tool in the Farm Bill, including Commodity Credit Corp programs, to protect ag producers from effects resulting in potential trade actions against China,” he wrote on Twitter, referring to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. “Farmers must know the Admin has their back & I urge them to act swiftly.”
China’s aggressive response to Trump’s tariffs is aimed squarely at products generated in the American heartland, a region that helped send him to the White House. A trade war with China could be particularly devastating to rural economies, especially for pig farmers and soybean and corn growers. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. soybean exports go to China.
The tariffs have not yet gone into effect, and the administration is engaging in back-channel talks with the Chinese to try to resolve their differences.
In the meantime, Trump has been escalating his threats, and shows no sign of backing off. On Thursday night, he threatened to impose tariffs on an additional $100 billion in Chinese products.
Trump administration officials argue that the tariffs on Chinese goods, while not intended to help certain American industries, are necessary to prevent China from continuing to violate international trade rules.