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By Joshua Green
President Donald Trump’s trade war with China has already sparked promises of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports, including soybeans, that will hit such Trump-friendly Midwestern states as Iowa, Indiana, North Dakota, and Nebraska—if they take effect. In March, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said “there is hope” they can be forestalled.
Sorghum growers aren’t so lucky. On Tuesday, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced it would impose a 178.6 percent duty on sorghum imports from the U.S. that will take effect almost immediately. The news puts an additional Trump-friendly state (and Republican leader) squarely in the crosshairs: Kansas is the largest sorghum producer in the U.S., and its senior senator, Pat Roberts, chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee.
“It’s extremely frustrating and very disappointing,” says Jesse McCurry, executive director of the Kansas Grain Sorghum Commission. “Half of Kansas sorghum or more was going to China, and that probably stops, at least for now.”
The new Chinese measure is a response to the tariffs Trump slapped on solar panels and washing machines earlier this year. China began a probe of sorghum imports in early February, shortly after Trump’s announcement. “We knew this was hanging over our heads,” says Kurt Winter, a sorghum farmer in Sedgwick County, Kansas, just outside Wichita. “But when we heard the news this morning, it was still just devastating to us. It’s really going to put the hammer to our price prospects.”
Trump’s campaign-trail protectionism and attacks on China were a big part of his appeal to Republican voters in 2016. But as he’s begun implementing those policies as president, the economic fallout has landed heavily on his own voters. Hardest hit by the new tariffs will be Roberts’s old congressional district (KS-01), known as “The Big First” for its sprawling, agriculture-intensive acreage. In the last election, Kansas’s first district voted for Trump over Hillary Clinton by 45 points.
Kansans such as Winter wish Trump would keep that in mind—but don’t hold out much hope. “I know that the administration is very much aware that rural America had a lot to do with putting President Trump in office,” Winter says. “But I’m not sure anybody can change his mind.”
Source: Bloomberg
