Grassley continues “wait and see” approach with Trump’s tariff plans

WASHINGTON — President Trump is warning US farmers to start upping their production after announcing that he will soon be imposing tariffs on external agricultural products. Trump wrote on Truth Social “To the Great Farmers of the United States, get ready to start making a lot of agricultural product to be sold inside of the United States. Tariffs will go on external products on April 2nd. Have fun!”.

During a conference call with ag reporters on Tuesday,  Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley was asked about Trump’s social media post.  “Well farmers do have fun, as long as they aren’t fighting drought and natural disasters and low prices. Hopefully we don’t have the natural disasters. Hopefully we get higher prices, but they aren’t there right now.”

Grassley expects some in Congress to ask for waivers to not apply tariffs to certain items.   “I think one of those waivers would be when we’re getting baby pigs almost daily from Canada, baby pigs that  are I imagine most of them are about 30 pounds, to finish out in Iowa, because we’re the number one pork producing state. I think a big tariff on those pigs would be catastrophic for pork in Iowa, and I’ll bet you will be asked for exemptions on that and we’ll just have to play it by ear.”

Grassley is continuing to take a “wait-and-see” approach with Trump’s actions on tariffs. “I think we have to realize that he’s just doing what the voters voted him to do, and we’ll just have to see how it works out. If he’s doing it for negotiating purposes to get people to the table to get tariffs down, and we have lower tariffs around the world, then I’ll have to say he’s been successful and I would say amen to his work. If he fails to do that and it’s catastrophic for the Iowa and the nation’s economy, then I’d have to say I told you so. But right now I think it’s wait and see.”

Trump announced on Monday that the 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian imports would start on Tuesday.