U.S. Farmers Lost Billions to Trump-Era Retaliatory Tariffs

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has said that if reelected, he would impose new tariffs on China reaching 60 percent of the goods’ value. After Trump’s tariffs aimed at China in early 2018, retaliation from the country and other nations affected hit the U.S. economy and especially agricultural producers hard. A report from the USDA shows that between mid-2018 and the end of 2019, more than $27 billion, thereof $25.7 billion tied to China, had to be compensated with government payments to farmers. Tariff rates never exceeded 30 percent of goods value in that time period and were as low as 7.5 percent for some products, so an even higher and uniform tariff rate of 60 percent would be sure to send another shock wave through the U.S. business and farming communities.

Back then, the Trump Administration addressed concerns earmarking federal aid worth $28 billion for farmers. Under current President Joe Biden, relief payments continued to rise. Yet, farmer advocates pointed out that the subsidies were going to large farms predominantly, leaving smaller producers out in the rain.

Despite being a critic of Trump’s tariffs initially, Biden kept them and the accompanying truce on the books and even recently passed new restrictions on Chinese trade concerning electric vehicles, which were described as more targeted, however. The Biden Administration has said that it was waiting for China to meet more of the concessions it made to the United States in order to decrease its trade surplus before it would lower or eradicate tariffs. China did purchase more U.S. agricultural products in order to meet its agreement to end the trade war in early 2020. While Chinese tariffs had an immediate downside and a later upside for U.S. farmers, this outcome was not a given and quick ruptures of the market were hard to compensate for many producers in the short and intermediate term. Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has not indicated that she is in favor of new tariffs on Chinese goods.