Eastern Iowa farmer says tariffs are a necessary evil

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – “I don’t like them, but I think it’s a necessary evil right at the moment,” said Benton Co. Farmer Lance Lillibridge.

That’s what one Eastern Iowa farmer had to say about the President’s plan to increase tariffs, which is necessary. Iowa soybean farmers could feel a direct impact from China’s retaliatory tariff threat. China is the largest consumer of US soybeans. The USDA said it bought nearly $13 billion worth of the American crop last year.

In announcing its planned 34% tariff increase on US goods, Chinese leaders said this trade war has been better handled with discussion. But Lillibridge said these tariffs have been affecting farmers for the last decade, and these tariffs are necessary to even the playing field.

Lillibridge raises cattle and grows row crops on 1,400 acres near Vinton.

“I’m not sure I can remember a day that agriculture wasn’t part of my life,” he said,

He said he doesn’t like the threats of increased tariffs but said farmers have been caught in the middle of trade fights for years.

“Back in the Bush administration or even when Clinton was President,” said Lillibridge.

He said it hasn’t only been on crops like corn and soybeans either on fertilizers or machine parts.

“The farmers getting it from both sides, and you know, I don’t like it,” said Lillibridge.

Lillibridge believes higher tariffs on American products have gone on long enough without being addressed, and the Iowa farmers have been the victims. He said higher prices on seed and fertilizer won’t hit farmers this Spring because most have already bought what they need for this planting season. But he said if a trade war does develop, the President will need to find a way to bolster farmers in the meantime.

“My message to President Trump would be ‘you know what, if you are going to tariff that’s great, we’ll stand behind you, we’ll stand beside you, but we have to have E-15 year-round. We have to have it nationwide, and we need to have conversation about the Next Generation Fuels Act.‘”

China said its 34% retaliatory tariff increase could have been avoided with a negotiated trade agreement, but Lillibridge said there’s already been plenty of talk.

“I’m not sure how else you do it,” he said. “I’m not sure if there is another way.”

China’s tariffs won’t go into effect until next Thursday, but they are designed to have a maximum effect on the U-S economy. Besides agricultural products, Beijing is also targeting industrial goods and what are called “rare earth elements” used in high-tech electronics.

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