Farmers are concerned and uncertain about what President Trump’s actions will bring on trade, but U.S. agricultural sectors encouraged the conflict and some farmers say short-term pain would be worth long-term gain.

Yakima County, Wash., fruit grower Jim Willard said he lost apple sales to India during the Trump trade war of 2018-19. He might get nicked again, but it’s a fight worth having, he said. “We need to bring world trade back in balance.”

“My personal view is that this might hurt some, but it is time to straighten out this mess,” Willard said. “The pain can’t get much higher for agriculture than it is right now.”

The U.S. imports more agricultural products than it exports. Still, the U.S. is the world’s No.1 exporter of farm goods. Farmers are supposed to dislike trade wars and some do.

Hood River, Ore., grower Craig McCurdy exports pears to Mexico and Canada. “Up to now, we haven’t had a problem,” he said.

The 2024 crop has been sold and shipped, but McCurdy wonders what will happen this year.

“God only knows,” he said. “I just don’t agree with what’s going on,” McCurdy said. “We’re basically giving a bunch of people the middle finger.”

The American Farm Bureau warns a trade war will hurt U.S. agriculture. Major exporters, such as Midwest soybean farmers, agree with the Farm Bureau and disagree with past Trump statements — trade wars are neither fun nor easy to win.

Ten farm products make up 57% of U.S. agricultural exports. The U.S., however, produces more than 300 commercial farm products. There are probably nearly as many shades of opinion among farmers about Trump’s moves, feints and reversals on trade.

Opinions are influenced by non-farm considerations, like a person’s politics or by watching retirement funds lose value.

Retaliatory tariffs may hurt farmers who export, but that’s not as bad as the country going bankrupt and being victimized by “free trade” agreements in which the only thing free is access to U.S. consumers, said Canyon County, Idaho, farmer Sid Freeman, a veteran grower of onions and sugar beets.

“We have to have a big-picture mentality,” he said. “I feel that eventually the tariffs will provide growth in our economy. … The question is whether we can survive it or not until there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”

Like other consumers, farmers worry China’s 125% tariff on U.S. goods — a response to Trump’s 145% tariff on  Chinese goods — will raise the cost of machinery.

“You’d be amazed what comes out of China for replacement parts,” Skagit County dairy farmer Jason Vander Kooy said.

Cattle prices are good, and Klickitat County, Wash., rancher Keith Kreps said he has a hard time seeing an upside to having a trade war now.

“We’ve been making what I consider a killing,” Kreps said.

“I’m more worried about keeping (stuff) running,” he said. “I think it’s going to hamper some of us with machinery — parts and pieces to keep us running.”

Washington hay exporter Mark Anderson said he sees potential upsides and downsides to the trade war.

“I think we can all agree that there are serious consequences that can go either way,” he said.

U.S. agriculture asks Trump for help

Soon after Trump took office, the U.S. trade representative asked businesses and trade groups to identify unfair trade practices. The request got more than 750 responses, including many from farmers, farm groups and agricultural exporters.

The complaints hardly portrayed a fair or free trading system. The Trump administration apparently took some of the complaints to heart.

In his executive order imposing reciprocal tariffs (which were quickly softened), Trump noted that India slaps U.S. apples with a 50% tariff, a complaint of the Northwest Horticultural Council. In his Liberation Day speech on April 2, Trump said Australia rejects U.S. beef products, a complaint of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

Trump also has emphasized the U.S. trade deficit in farm goods. The U.S. imported more agricultural products than it exported in 2019, breaking a 60-year streak of farm trade surpluses. Between 2014 and 2024, U.S. farm exports increased 1% annually, while imports increased 6%, according to the USDA Economic Research Service.

Some organizations, such as the cattlemen’s group R-CALF, advocate protectionist measures to address trade deficits.

“I actually think President Trump is on the right track,” Spokane County cattleman Jim Wentland said. “We have to stop importing so much.”

The Trump administration also has repeatedly stressed that the U.S. puts up relatively few trade barriers compared to the rest of the world.

“There is a need to get market access without a doubt,” said Anderson, the hay exporter. Nevertheless, he criticized the Trump administration’s unilateral trade actions as damaging to longtime trade relations.

“I think it’s great we’re pushing for market access. I would approach it very differently if it were up to me,” he said. “It’d be better in my opinion if down the line there were actually people sitting at the table.”

The China hay market, not healthy before, is closed for now, and it’s unknown what will happen with Japan and South Korea, Anderson said. Hay exporters need to find new markets, he said.  “I think the unknowns are very concerning.”

Since April 2, other countries have been calling to make trade deals, according to the Trump administration. No trade deals have been announced.

Kevin Dobbins, a Clark County, Wash., berry and grass seed farmer, said a trade war might help him and other farmers and that doing nothing doesn’t make sense.

“If we keep going the way we’re going, we’re dead anyway,” he said. “Walk through a grocery store. What do you see that’s made here? It’s pretty minimal.”

Government regulations dictate so many aspects of farming and they impose costs not put on foreign producers, Dobbins said.

“What is the equalizer?” he asked. “I think tariffs are a good thing. How else do we compete globally?”

The fight has risks. Farm groups complain about trade barriers, but they also worry about upsetting the status quo, alienating countries, losing customers and inviting retaliation.

The U.S. produces two-thirds of the world’s cranberries and cranberry products were the target of retaliatory tariffs during the first Trump administration. Long Beach, Wash., cranberry grower Malcolm McPhail said he’s more concerned that his Wisconsin counterparts will produce another bumper crop this year and hold down prices.

“Most of our fruit is marketed in the U.S. I don’t think (retaliatory tariffs) would be that big of a deal,” he said.

Kuna, Idaho, farmer Dave Reynolds has been farming long enough to remember that President Jimmy Carter’s grain embargo on the Soviet Union cost U.S. farmers money.

“I’m very nervous about what next year will bring. I think most farmers are,” said Reynolds, who has a dairy, beef cattle and grows about a dozen crops. “I think in the short term it’s not going to be nice. Markets don’t like uncertainty.”

Still, Reynolds sees merit in Trump’s approach to balancing trade. “My gut tells me it’s probably going in a direction long overdue… and I’m hoping I’m not bankrupted in the process.”

Trump, Reynolds said, goes “so fast, so hard. Part of me thinks he should take a slower and more practical approach, but part of me wonders if anything would happen if he didn’t rattle the cage.”

Unsweet trade

When talking about trade, it matters which countries are being talked about.

Grant County, Wash., tree fruit grower Kent Karsetter said he hopes the U.S. won’t anger Mexico and Canada, his two best foreign customers. “I’m hoping we play somewhat nice,” he said.

In comments to the U.S. trade representative, the Northwest Horticultural Council had no complaints about Mexico and Canada.

It did have complaints about Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. If those countries lowered tariffs or non-tariff barriers, Northwest apple, cherry and pear growers would benefit, according to the council.

The deal-making Trump may help, Karsetter said. “I’m cautiously optimistic.”

“The world is a business. China is run like a business and that’s why it comes out on top,” he said. “We just cave. Everything we do we do to ourselves. That’s why we need business people running the country.”

The U.S. honey industry contends low-quality and cheap honey from Asia unfairly crowds out domestic honey. Domestic honey accounts for only about one-fourth of the honey consumed in the U.S., according to the USDA.

“Imports from Asia are slaughtering us on the price,” Ephrata, Wash., beekeeper Tim Hiatt said. “If we could get a better price on honey, there wouldn’t be as much pressure on raising pollinating prices.”

U.S. honey producers won an antidumping case against China in 2001. The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled Chinese companies were selling honey in the U.S. at less than fair value and put high tariffs on Chinese honey makers.

The tariffs are still in place. If lifted, Chinese honey makers would flood the U.S. market, according to the commission. U.S. honey makers suspect China circumvents the tariffs by routing honey through other countries.

“Countries that never exported honey before suddenly became huge exporters of honey,” Hiatt said.

Canada ships honey to the U.S., but Canadian production costs are similar and so is the quality, Hiatt said. “I would say there’s a level playing field between the U.S. and Canada.”

If high tariffs were imposed on Asian honey, retail honey prices would “absolutely not” rise, Hiatt said. Grocery store prices have risen, but beekeepers aren’t benefiting, Hiatt said.

“I look at the grocery store prices and think, ‘I should be a packer, I should get in on some of those high prices,’ “ Hiatt said.

The dairy industry urged the Trump administration to get tougher on trade.

The National Milk Producers Federation and U.S. Dairy Export Council accuses Canada of reneging on commitments in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement to take more U.S. dairy products.

The groups, though, had much harsher criticism for the European Union. The trading relationship between the U.S. and EU “must fundamentally change,” they told the U.S. trade representative.

European dairy producers annually export $3 billion worth of products to the U.S., while U.S. producers sell only $167 million to the EU. Europe achieves its growing trade surplus with restrictions, such as “geographic indicators” that bar products with common names such as “parmesan” and “feta” from the EU, according to the U.S. dairy industry.

The imbalance will get worse if the European countries embrace the EU’s new “Vision for Agriculture and Food,” a blueprint for increasing Europe’s farm trade surplus.

Vander Kooy, the dairy farmer, said even a small increase in dairy sales can mean a big swing in prices. “I’m optimistic that these negotiations might lead to more demand for our products for exports,” he said. “I believe 100% we could do better if we were more forceful.”