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Farmers urge Washington to lift tariffs, make trade deals, and open markets

Farmers for Free Trade brought its Motorcade for Trade to western Wisconsin to emphasize the importance of trade deals like the USMCA. 

Farmer Louisa Peterson of Creamery Creek Holsteins says they milk 675 cows three times a day, and finishing trade deals so more farm commodities can be exported is important to her. “A market for our farm’s milk is a priority, so if we can talk about this or get more of the awareness out about this deal, we’re willing to do that every day until it gets done.”

National Milk’s President Jim Mulhern says eliminating tariffs and opening more world markets is vital. “Getting new trade policies, new trade agreements to give us more market access is really going to be the salvation of the U.S. dairy industry.”

Congressman Ron Kind of Wisconsin says tariffs and retaliatory tariffs are hurting American farmers and need to go. “I’ve been literally talking to the President’s trade team every week asking them to resolve the (Section) 232 steel and aluminum tariffs because that is what has invited the retaliation against the family farmers back home.”

Mulhern says another important part of the USMCA agreement is new disciplines on Canadian dairy policy which have hurt U.S. farmers.  “When they’re dumping their surplus skim milk powder onto the world market, that’s driving down the world price for skim milk powder.  The U.S. is the largest exporter of skim milk powder in the world, so you drive that price down, it hurts us all across the country.  So, for all of those reasons and many more, we need to get USMCA done, get it through the Congress, get it signed by the President as quickly as we can and then we need more and better trade agreements.  We need better trade policy to give us better access to those markets.”

Wisconsin Farm Bureau President Jim Holte tells Brownfield, “We’re laboring under the challenge of moving product internationally.  Trade is not our only market, but it’s an important one to us.”

Jeff Lyon is the General Manager of FarmFirst Dairy Cooperative.  He says, “When I got my start,  you know trade was such a small, small part of the dairy industry and all of agriculture, quite honestly, and it’s grown to be such a big part of where farmers get their income that when we’re looking at these trade agreements, they’re just so important and so critical to farmers being able to expand their markets and being able to sell their product.”

A.V. Roth is President-Elect for the National Pork Producers Council.  He says removing the Section 232 steel and aluminum tariffs would help restore pork exports to Mexico.  “Pork was going in there, and we put the 232’s on and they slapped us with 20% tariffs on ours.  We just want to be able to sell our product in there.  We think we can beat anybody in the world with our pork product, how we produce it, and the quality that we do.  We just want to be able to have a chance to sell it there.”  Roth says eliminating the steel and aluminum tariffs immediately, even before USMCA is ratified would help.  “Whatever they need to do to get that off will help.  It’s straight hitting our bottom line.  Hams are down almost 20%, exactly what it is going into Mexico.”

Although times are tough in the down farm economy, Peterson remains optimistic. “We are optimistic, and there are things that feel like it could lift up this year so we’re just going to hang in there and do our best every day.”

Listen to Brownfield’s interviews from the event below: