Jan 30, 2024

Trump’s tariff plan criticized

Rural Voices USA, a bipartisan organization that promotes the interests of rural Americans, is applauding Nikki Haley for criticizing Donald Trump’s tariff plan. The group states the plan would have a devastating impact on farmers, according to a news release.

The former president plan would tax American households through an expansion of tariffs as high as 60% on consumer goods and other products, Chris Gibbs, the Maplewood, Ohio, Rural Voices board president, said in a news release.

“Nikki Haley is right to sound the alarm that Trump’s tariffs will raise costs for households by thousands of dollars every year,” Gibbs said in the release. “It’s an awful idea to tax Americans on the things they buy. Tariffs have done nothing to level the playing field with China and other countries and will fuel inflation. Trump’s new tariff plan would be a wrecking ball to rural America.”

“My hope is that Governor Haley also brings up the devastating impact new tariffs have on farmers in South Carolina, here in Ohio, and everywhere across the country. New tariffs result in painful retaliation from our trading partners and that retaliation is always laser focused on farmers. According to the USDA, Trump’s tariffs in 2018 cost farmers $27 billion in lost farm exports because of retaliation alone. More was lost because of higher cost on inputs and equipment. Now Trump wants to double or triple down on those losses?”

Rural Voices is a 501 (c)4 nonprofit bipartisan organization dedicated to ensuring the voices and views of rural Americans are heard in the policy debates impacting their lives.

Gibbs’ farm grows corn, soybeans and operates a cow and calf herd.