As President Donald Trump continues to use tariffs to leverage trade deals with countries like China, Canada, and Mexico, many wonder if residents in Warren County, so connected to agriculture, will support the president’s trade agenda.
Conservatives generally favor a free trade approach to the international market, avoiding government interference into the market. Likewise, states like Iowa have the most to lose if retaliatory tariffs affect our ability to profit from exported agricultural products.
However, the fluid international situation has caused some to warm to pro-tariff strategy.
For President Trump, tariffs don’t seem to be so much an ideological conviction as a strategic tool. In a recent comment, the president said,
Tariffs, for us, nobody can compete with us because we’re the pot of gold…But if we don’t keep winning and keep doing well, we won’t be the pot of gold and then tariffs won’t be so good for us. But when you’re the pot of gold, the tariffs are very good, they’re very powerful, and they’re going to make our country very rich again.
The strategy appears to be effective as deals have already been reached with Mexico and Canada.
Trump can now turn his attention to China. When dealing with a rival superpower, tariffs can become a matter of national security. It’s probable that everyone on both sides of the Pacific would rather have our economies battle than our militaries.
It’s important to remember that Donald Trump ran on these tariff policies. Despite being very open about his view of tariffs, Iowa overwhelmingly voted for President Trump. It seems that Iowans trust President Trump to use the leverage of tariffs to make deals that benefit Americans.
Though there are real fears about the short-term effects that tariffs will have on the economy, it appears that Iowans are hopeful that Trump’s “art of the deal” style negotiations will benefit the people of the United States.
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