Wisconsin farmers are already feeling negative impacts from previous tariffs, as China announces more retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion dollars in U.S. goods. “It’s getting to the point now where just about everything produced in rural Wisconsin has got some kind of tariff on it, going into the Chinese markets,” said Wisconsin Farmers Union president Daren Von Ruden.
The Trump administration’s trade dispute with China follows on five years of falling commodity prices and losses from spring flooding. China is also establishing new trading relationships, as farmers in other countries learn how to cater to the Chinese markets.
Von Ruden said it’s difficult to see how a “trade war” helps Wisconsin farmers in the short-term, after they’ve spent years working to enter those same Chinese markets. “It took is 15-20 years to get into those markets,” he said. “It’s going to be another 10 to 20 year process to get back into those markets.”
