Minnesota Auditor On Trump Tariffs Impact on Farmers, Rural Areas

ST. PAUL (WJON News) -- A handful of Democratic State Treasurers and Auditors held a news conference Wednesday morning to share their concerns about what impact President Donald Trump's tariffs will have on family farms and rural communities.

Minnesota Auditor Julie Blaha says soybeans are one of the biggest issues to be concerned about right now in Minnesota.

During these times of uncertainty, we may lose Chinese customers going to say Brazil instead of Minnesota.  Even if Trump reverses course, you still may not get that customer back, it's hard to get that customer back once you've lost them.

Blaha says 10 percent universal tariffs threaten billions of dollars in agricultural losses.

She says she believes a bailout for farmers similar to the tariffs in Trump's first term wouldn't be enough.

People can't make decisions because we also don't know if any of these tariffs will be used to bail out farmers.  The kind of bailout we had in 2018 after those tariffs in agriculture would not be big enough to balance out what we're going through right now.

Blaha says there also needs to be more transparency from the Trump administration on where the money that's being collected from tariffs is going.

Let's not talk about people getting rich; let's just make sure no one goes broke.  We need a plan for not only what the tariffs are going to be, but what we're going to do with the proceeds from the tariffs already.

Minnesota is the fourth-largest agricultural exporting state behind California, Iowa, and Illinois.

Minnesota's largest exported crop is soybeans at 25.6 percent.

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In Minnesota, ag exports support more than 52,000 jobs both on and off the farm.

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