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Majority of farmers support Trump’s Chinese tariffs, survey finds

A majority of Midwestern crop farmers supports President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products, according to a survey conducted by Iowa State University.

The survey was conducted last spring and focused on Minnesota, Iowa and Illinois, with 700 farmers responding.

ISU economist Wendong Zhang helped coordinate the survey.

“One of the most important findings is that, despite the income shock through the trade war on U.S. agricultural exports and farm income, 56 percent of the farmers we surveyed still support President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese products,” Zhang says.

Farmer support for the tariffs may have received a boost from the 2018 Market Facilitation Program payments, he says.

“Almost 90 percent of the farmers we surveyed found the 2018 payments–the 12 billion dollars in payments—really helpful.”

Zhang says, in general, most farmer-respondents viewed the trade disruption as “short-term-pain/long-term-gain”.