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Making the tariffs work in “the art of the deal”

A farmer from eastern South Dakota says he believes trade tariffs can be a short-term pain for long-term gain. But Scott VanderWal tells Brownfield “I’d hate to see them last too long, like a year or something, but that’s something we can’t control. We’re going to have to hang in there and make it work.”

Earlier this week, the United States issued tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada and China and two of those countries responded with retaliation. On Thursday, President Trump paused tariffs on imports of Mexican and Canadian goods that fall under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement until April 2.

VanderWal says it’s a little bit of déjà vu, but those actions tell him progress is being made in “the art of the deal.”

“The hard part of that whole thing is it has quite an effect on the markets,” he says. “We’ve seen corn crash pretty hard, about 60 cents in the last eight days or so. It was up yesterday a little bit and I think they’re responding to the up and down in the tariff dispute as well.”

VanderWal, vice-president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, says USDA helped farmers survive the last trade war and while farmers would rather have markets instead of government aid, the agency is preparing to issue trade relief to farmers, if needed.

VanderWal is also the president of South Dakota Farm Bureau.