Friday, April 18, 2025 | 2 a.m.
We have to speak about tariffs.
Let’s begin with the apparent fact: Whether or not they’re imposed by Democrats or Republicans, tariffs are taxes paid by us — not by overseas international locations.
Stroll round your own home and decide up something that claims “Made in China.” Now, think about the value of this merchandise is double or triple what you paid for it due to an escalating 145% tariff. Inflation was already unhealthy sufficient, however what occurs when tariffs begin making requirements like meals much more unaffordable? That hurts America’s farmers and households.
I launched the Cease Elevating Costs on Meals Act in Congress, which revokes the president’s unilateral authority to impose tariffs on our largest agricultural buying and selling companions with out congressional approval. This shouldn’t be controversial or partisan. This must be widespread sense.
The final time we performed this harmful recreation in 2018, American farmers misplaced over $27 billion in agricultural exports as a consequence of retaliatory tariffs. Probably the most vital losses had been concentrated within the high exports from the communities I symbolize in California’s Central Valley, together with processed fruits, tree nuts and dairy merchandise.
Now, extremely, we’re doing it over again.
The present administration’s on-again, off-again method to worldwide commerce has created a local weather of uncertainty that’s poison for agricultural producers who want stability to plan their operations. Farmers can’t pivot on a dime. They will’t abruptly discover new markets when China, Canada or Mexico slap retaliatory tariffs on their merchandise. They will’t un-plant crops or un-grow fruit when market circumstances abruptly change.
The American Farm Bureau estimates that new retaliatory tariffs from simply three international locations — Canada, Mexico and China — may affect practically $30 billion in agricultural exports. When farmers say tariffs are a tax on producers and shoppers, they’re not talking from some ivory tower indifferent from the true world, they’re talking from bitter expertise. They’ve already lived by way of one commerce conflict that turned their companies the other way up. They’ve already shouldered losses that might have bankrupted many different industries.
Some individuals will say tariffs are vital to guard American business. However which American industries are we defending after we invite tariffs in opposition to our farmers? Some politicians say we simply must be robust, but it surely’s straightforward to be robust after they aren’t the farmer paying the fee.
In 2018, the Division of Agriculture needed to create a $12 billion help program to assist farmers climate retaliatory tariffs. Take into consideration that: We imposed tariffs, which led to countertariffs, which devastated our farmers and required taxpayer cash to repair an issue we created ourselves. This isn’t financial technique; it’s financial malpractice.
That’s why my laws issues. It ensures Congress has the facility to cease any president, Democrat or Republican, from turning America’s farmers into collateral injury in a commerce conflict.
Should you consider in American agriculture, in secure markets and that the individuals who feed this nation deserve higher than to be handled as expendable in worldwide energy performs, then you need to help the Cease Elevating Costs on Meals Act.
U.S. Rep. Adam Grey, D-Calif., represents the thirteenth Congressional District. He wrote this for the Merced (Calif.) Solar-Star.
