Texas official on Chinese tariffs: Running into 'little rough spell' is 'fine'
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said farmers may have a “little rough spell” under President Trump’s new tariff policies with China but the demographic should be “fine” in the long run.
“Donald Trump has told me that he loves the family farmer, and 95 percent of the farming in the United States is done by the family farmers. He's not going to let them go out of business. He knows that they're vital to our national security, to our economy,” Miller said during a Monday appearance on NewsNation’s “The Hill.”
“So absolutely, we have to keep those farmers in business. If we're going to run into a little rough spell, that's fine. We'll make it up when we collect those tariffs. More than repay the Treasury for that money that went out to the farmers,” he added.
President Trump added a new 10 percent tariff on imports from China, continuing a pattern of what the country’s leaders have described as “blackmail.”
China promised to hit back with 15 percent tariffs on imports of chicken, wheat, corn and cotton from the U.S., as well as 10 percent tariffs on imports of sorghum, soybeans, pork, beef, seafoods, fruits, vegetables and dairy products, delivering a blow to American farmers.
Texas leads the nation in the number of farms and ranches, with 230,662 covering 125.5 million acres and producing billions in agricultural products each year.
“We've been through this before. First Trump administration, we had a tariff war with China. We'd always been in a tariff war, but we never fought back, until Donald Trump came along. He put the tariffs on, we felt some pain for a short time, Donald Trump used the Commodity Credit Corporation to prop farmers up until we could get the profits back,” Miller told anchor Blake Burman.
“It happened. In the end, farmers made more money than they've ever made. Commodity prices were good. It was all because of the tariffs that Trump put on them. It'll be the same way this time,” he continued.
However, this time the sweeping measures on China, a designated foreign adversary, come amidst additional proposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
Economists have warned of possible inflation and a potential recession as the president’s new policies begin to take effect. Despite concerns and a stock market plunge, Trump has maintained that the country will benefit from the global trade rewiring.
“There is a period of transition, because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing. And there are always periods of — it takes a little time,” Trump said during an appearance on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“It takes a little time. But I think it should be great for us. I mean, I think it should be great,” he added.
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