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Shining Light on Farm & Food Policy for 20 Years.
Saturday, May 18, 2024
As U.S. leaders pledge to increase tariff rates on Chinese products and the Asian giant plans to retaliate, more farmers are asking: “How do tariffs really work?”
China today promised to strike back once again over a planned escalation of U.S. import taxes. The Chinese Finance Ministry announced it will increase tariffs on an additional $60 billion worth of U.S. products if the U.S. follows through with a plan to add tariffs to $200 billion of Chinese goods by September.
President Donald Trump today asked his top trade negotiator to consider increasing the pain from proposed new tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, raising the rate to 10 percent to 25 percent.
Some Republicans say the best thing Congress could do to help farmers withstand the turmoil in trade policy is to pass a new farm bill. But economists say the legislation is unlikely to offer much relief to farmers, especially soybean growers, even if commodity prices don’t recover from their current tariff-induced slump.
It was more than two months ago, in early May, when Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross sat down on a Tuesday morning with Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue in his second-floor office suite at USDA headquarters to discuss how they could push the Europeans into lowering trade barriers on U.S. farm commodities.
When USDA officials announced last week that they were planning to help farmers hard hit by trade disputes with up to $12 billion in assistance, the news was largely welcomed in farm country as a way to provide short-term relief. But new concerns are emerging.
With new tariffs and rising trade tensions around the globe, one relatively new market may be growing at just the right time, thanks to U.S. market development efforts and a Free Trade Agreement.
Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue was adamant in his comments to reporters today that the myriad ag issues that separate the U.S. and European Union be negotiated in upcoming trade talks, but EU officials again said that wouldn’t happen.
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