“Leave it to Reps. Davis and Bost and Washington Republicans to run interference on their own attempt at an economic message while further imperiling their own re-election chances in November.” – DCCC spokesperson Jacob Peters
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St. Louis Post Dispatch: Vulnerable U.S. agriculture ‘on the tip of the spear’ amid China’s retaliatory tariff threats
[…] Even more could be at stake across the Mississippi River. Illinois is the country’s largest producer of soybeans and fourth-largest source of pork, according to the USDA. The latest agency numbers show that the state has the third-highest value of agricultural exports, totaling more than $8.3 billion in 2016.
[…] For some congressional Republicans who supported Trump’s initial steel tariffs last month, Wednesday’s news could turn what had been a winning political hand into a losing one.
Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., for example, was an early and enthusiastic backer of the steel tariffs because of major steel production in his district, which includes parts of the Metro East. That support appeared to have paid off politically for him last month, when a shuttered Illinois steel plant was restarted in the wake of the steel tariff announcement. Bost at the time called it a “big victory.”
But even more important to Bost’s region than steel is agriculture. In recent comments to the St. Louis AgriBusiness Club, Bost — who is being heavily targeted by Democrats in November — reassured nervous farm interests that the steel tariffs he supported were unlikely to lead to retaliatory agriculture tariffs from China. He called such fear a “knee-jerk reaction. […]
Herald and Review: U.S. Rep. Davis: ‘We have 6 weeks’ for Trump administration to negotiate with China on new tariffs, including soybeans
U.S. Rodney Davis said he understands the concerns about how a potential trade war between the United States and China could hurt Central Illinois and its farmers.
Yet the Republican from Taylorville said Wednesday he was willing to wait and see whether the two nations could reach an agreement in the next six weeks before billions of dollars in tariffs affecting the United States are set to go in place.
[…] Farms in Central Illinois and across the country could especially be hurt by the tariffs. American farm exports to China in 2017 totaled nearly $20 billion, including $1.1 billion of pork products. In addition, one out of every 3 soybeans grown in the U.S. is exported to China, and Illinois is the top soybean-producing state in the U.S.
[…] The association says soybean farmers lost an estimated $1.72 billion on Wednesday morning alone as soybean futures tumbled.
“That’s real money lost for farmers, and it is entirely preventable,” Heisdorffer says in a statement. […]