Senate Republicans are warning President Trump against imposing further tariffs on imported goods, fearing likely trade retaliation after Trump moved against solar panels from China, and South Korean washing machines.
GOP Senators are writing the president that his actions could start a trade war, threatening U.S. industries and jobs. Lawmakers are already anxious Trump may pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, a boon for U.S. agriculture since 1994.
Among signers or possible signers: Roy Blunt of Missouri, South Dakota’s John Thune and Mike Rounds, and Iowa’s Chuck Grassley.
On the line: lucrative U.S. soybean exports and sales of U.S. beef, banned by China for some 13-years, after a case of BSE or ‘mad cow’ disease in the United States. China has already put new restrictions on U.S. soybeans over impurities.
American Farm Bureau Federation trade adviser Dave Salmonsen…
The administration and the president may go after steel and aluminum imports from China, next.
18-U.S. farm groups, including Farm Bureau, wrote Commerce Secretary Wilber Ross earlier, warning such restrictions could ignite a trade war with “disastrous” consequences for U.S. agriculture. A Chinese state-run newspaper wrote in 2016, China will halt U.S. soybean and corn imports if the U.S. imposes punitive tariffs on Chinese goods.
Salmonsen says it’s not ‘empty threats’—China has retaliated before…
And Farm Bureau’s concerned, that ‘something,’ will be targeting U.S. agriculture, worth some 25-billion in sales in China’s market.
