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JD Vance was in Iowa last week, trying to shore up GOP support in the heartland. "We want farming to be easier in the United States of America, not harder," the vice president told the crowd in Council Bluffs. Farming is always hard but what could be making it even harder these days?
Hmmm. Could it be President Donald Trump's tariffs and trade wars that have raised farmers' costs and lost them markets abroad due to retaliation? Asking for a friend in the Midwest.
While Mr. Trump can claim all he wants that foreigners pay his tariffs, Deere & Co. said on an earnings call last month that it expects "direct tariff expense of approximately $1.1 billion for the fiscal year." That figure doesn't include the refunds the company is getting for the tariffs that the Supreme Court held illegal, but it's a show of the burden. Mr. Trump's border taxes filter through supply chains to all kinds of parts and equipment, making it harder for farmers when they buy tractors, combines, harvesters and planters.
Likewise, Mr. Trump can say over and over that the U.S. doesn't need anything from Canada, but the Farm Belt knows it depends on potash fertilizer from America's northern neighbor. Mr. Trump's latest 50% tariffs on Canada specifically didn't apply to potash, which ought to be telling. Some Canadians, however, have debated using their potash as leverage against the U.S. if trade tensions escalate.
Countries that respond to Mr. Trump's tariffs also know how to target Mr. Trump's supporters in red states. Between March 2025 and February 2026, retaliatory tariffs cut U.S. agricultural exports to China by $14.9 billion, annualized, according to a May report from North Dakota State University. Nearly half of that was soybeans, though it also included beef, cotton, tree nuts and corn.
Iowa's exposure to that loss of Chinese sales was $1.2 billion by itself, though the researchers cautioned that this figure wasn't the net harm to farmers, which was "smaller after accounting for redirected sales." Chinese President Xi Jinping has promised to buy more U.S. soybeans, and maybe he will repeat his promise to Mr. Trump this week. Yet the Agriculture Department last year also announced $12 billion in "bridge payments" to help farmers through "market disruptions."
Republicans are now in political danger in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, states that "oughta be fat guy layups for us," as Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy put it last week. If the Administration wants farming in the U.S. to be easier, then stop the policies that make it harder.
ONLINE: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-gops-farm-belt-economics-problem-c331d5f7?mod=editorials_article_pos14