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Trump trade moves rattle Republican voters in
RURAL AMERICA
By NICK GERANIOS, STEVE PEOPLES and STEVE KARNOWS- KI, Associated Press
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Gary Bailey is certain China is trying to rattle Donald Trump voters with
its threat to slap tari s on soybeans and other agriculture staples grown in rural America. e wheat farmer in eastern Washington, a state that exports $4 billion a year in farm products, is also certain of the result.
“It’s a strategy that’s working,” he said.
If farmers are worried, so are Republican politicians, who depended on small-town America to hand them control of Congress and know how quickly those voters could take it away. Just seven months before the 2018 midterm elections, Trump’s faceo with China over trade has exposed an unexpected political vulnerability in what was supposed to be the Republican Party’s strongest region: rural America.
e clash with China poses a direct threat to the economies in both red and blue states, from California’s central valley to eastern Washington through Minneso- ta’s plains and across Missouri and Indiana and into Ohio.
ey are regions in which the GOP’s quest to retain its House and Senate major- ities this fall is tied directly to Republican voters’ views about their pocketbooks and Trump’s job performance. e signs of fear and frustration about both are easy to nd.
In southwestern Minnesota, soybean farmer Bill Gordon says the volatility in the markets makes it harder for farmers like him to market their crop and lock in pro tability. e state is the country’s
fourth-largest exporting state, and the state’s top farm export market is China.
A Trump voter, Gordon said right now he’s disappointed, not angry, over what’s happening. But the trade tensions could a ect his vote in the open race for the region’s congressional seat, where the farm vote is signi cant.
“I vote for the people who represent ru- ral America,” he said. “It’s not a party line.”
Trump says he’s simply ghting against unfair business practices with a geopoliti- cal rival.
A er the Trump administration an- nounced plans to impose tari s on $50 billion in Chinese imports Tuesday, China lashed back within hours, matching the American tari s with plans to tax $50 bil- lion of U.S. products, including soybeans, corn and wheat.
Trump escalated the stando further
on ursday by asking the U.S. trade representative to consider $100 billion
in additional tari s against China, which had previously released plans to impose retaliatory tari s on frozen pork, nuts and wine in response to Trump’s intent to apply
duties to imported aluminum and steel.
e soybean industry, perhaps more than any other, illustrates the potential harm to Republican candi- dates in the fall.
Soy production is concentrated in the Midwest. Illinois, Iowa, Minne- sota, Nebraska, Indiana and Mis- souri account for over half of all soy produced in the United States. And more than 60 percent of U.S. soy exports have been sent to mainland China in recent years.
Trump won 89 percent of Ameri- ca’s counties that produce soy, according to an Associated Press analysis of Agriculture Department and election data. In those counties, on average, two out of three voters supported Trump in 2016.
Many Republican candidates who rep- resent rural areas Trump won in 2016 are being forced to choose between his trade policies and community interests. Vulnera- ble Republicans are walking a tightrope.
In eastern Washington, seven-term Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers had already found herself in an unexpect- edly tight race. She has urged the White House to “reverse course” on the Chinese tari s in recent days.
Jared Powell, a spokesman for McMor- ris Rodgers, said her o ce had asked the Trump administration for clari cation on the e ects of the tari s.
“She is doing what she can to speak out publicly,” Powell said.
Overall, an estimated 2.1 million jobs could be a ected by the trade dispute nationally, with a majority coming from counties that Trump won, according to an analysis by Mark Muro, a senior fellow at
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