GOP faces rural rebellion over Trump trade agenda
NBC News
JONATHAN ALLEN AND LEIGH ANN CALDWELL
Apr 21st 2018 11:17AM
WASHINGTON — From his dairy farm in southeastern Nebraska, lifelong Republican Ben Steffen believed Donald Trump meant what he said on the campaign trail about ripping up U.S. trade agreements.
So Steffen, who produces milk, beef, soybeans, corn and wheat, wasn't shocked when Trump pulled America out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership pact, began renegotiating NAFTA or announced his intent to impose aluminum and steel tariffs on China that have drawn the threat of retaliatory sanctions on American products.
But he is alarmed about the potential costs of Trump's trade agenda to his own operation and the state's economy.
"This kind of chaotic volatility in our trading relationships damages the market," Steffen, who runs the farm with his wife, his sister and four full-time employees, said in a telephone interview with NBC News. "The market responds and the prices are erratic and that's destabilizing for people out here on the bottom end producing feed and food."
Now Steffen, who didn't vote for Trump, is a vocal supporter of Jane Raybould, the Democrat running an improbable campaign against first-term Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb. — and says he's talked to a lot of fellow farmers and Republicans who have "buyer's remorse" about Trump and Fischer.
While it would take a political tsunami for Fischer to lose — Trump won the state by 25 percentage points — the president's trade agenda has boxed in congressional Republicans as they fight to hold their majorities in the House and Senate, potentially affecting competitive races in more than a dozen states.
They're reluctant to distance themselves from a president who is following through on campaign-trail trade promises, whose support they need to drive Republican turnout and who vows his strategy will yield better deals for the country in the long run.
And yet in rural areas across the country that are imperiled by disruptions in U.S. relations with China, Mexico, Canada and other trading partners, Republicans are facing a potential backlash from voters who are afraid that his tack on trade will hurt their bottom lines.
"The president's actions are going to be harmful to Republican candidates in the fall if remedial action is not taken," said former Sen. Dick Lugar, a Republican who represented Indiana for 36 years.
more:
http://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/04/21/gop-faces-rural-rebellion-over-trump-trade-agenda/23416923/
DO SOMETHING!
| 