'Farmers in the crosshairs': Ex-USDA chief warns Trump tariffs could be 'really hurtful'

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump's newest tariffs are slated to go into effect on various imported goods from multiple countries. But the big question that has yet to be answered is how other countries will respond — and how that response could impact Americans.

During a Monday night interview with CNN host Kaitlan Collins, Tom Vilsack, who was the secretary of agriculture under former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, elaborated on how American farmers could be put in a particularly stressful position depending on how the United States' tariffs are received around the world. Vilsack theorized that if countries that purchase American agricultural products want to apply pressure to the Trump administration to reconsider its tariffs, they may consider importing food from elsewhere. And he cautioned that if they did so, it could cause permanent harm to the farming economy.

"Agriculture is one of our principal export opportunities. [Trading partners] recognize the politics of agriculture in the United States. and obviously that puts farmers in the crosshairs," Vilsack said. "Once we lose a market, it's very difficult to get it back."

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Collins observed that Trump's new tariffs are more broad than those imposed during his first term in the White House. And she pointed out that Biden preserved some of Trump's tariffs on Chinese products, and allowed new markets to emerge. But when she asked Vilsack if he was optimistic that this new round of tariffs would produce similar results, he was skeptical.

"It's pretty difficult when you're dealing with the quantity and quality of what we export," the former agriculture secretary said. "When 30% or so of soybeans are exported, it's pretty difficult if one of your major customers or several of your major customers decide to look elsewhere."

Vilsack reminded viewers that during Trump's first-term tariffs, Brazil "invested in their infrastructure" and ramped up their soybean exporting capacity to allow the South American nation to serve as an alternative soybean producer to the United States. He further emphasized that if Trump aims to minimize damage to farmers, he should find a way to quickly bargain to bring down any tariffs other countries put in place before major alternative purchasing decisions are made.

"That's why it's really important, i think, for whatever negotiation is going to take place to be relatively quickly, so that if there is retaliation, it's limited, so we don't lose market share," he said. "And so frankly, farmers don't necessarily need as much relief from the government as perhaps they may have to have, if it's a long-term type of situation."

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