Trump sells tariffs as farmers’ win in Iowa, but many aren’t buying it
As US president courts rural voters before midterms, growers fear Beijing may retaliate against Trump policies by curbing purchases again
After a bruising 2025 that pushed him to the brink of bankruptcy, Arkansas soybean farmer Randall Shelby starts the new year worried that US farmers could once again be caught in the crossfire as tensions between Washington and Beijing threaten to escalate anew.
This comes as US President Donald Trump addressed farmers on Tuesday in Iowa, the United States’ second-largest soybean producer, to try to convince them that he has their best interests at heart in advance of the November midterm elections.
Trump called protesters gathered outside the venue “lunatics” and “sickos” that, according to local media, numbered nearly 2,000.
Farmers are “going to be the biggest beneficiary” of his tariff policy, but it was “going to take a little while to kick in”, Trump said, after a Fox News host cited concerns raised by a local farmer in the audience during an otherwise friendly interview at a restaurant in Urbandale, Iowa.
Trump reminded the audience that farmers had “stuck” with him during the tariff war with China in his first term, when Beijing “did a little bit of a number” in retaliation.
Calling the aid a “minimal payment” and a “little check” from the tariffs “fortune”, Trump said “nobody else would be able to do that”.