{"id":433597,"date":"2025-09-18T12:25:31","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T12:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/433597\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T12:25:31","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T12:25:31","slug":"farmers-need-trade-justice-not-weaponized-tariffs-nffc-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/433597\/","title":{"rendered":"Farmers Need Trade Justice, Not Weaponized Tariffs: NFFC, USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since January, the second Trump Administration\u2019s trade policy has been marked by constant change. The most recent headlines indicate that the\u00a0Supreme Court will determine the fate<\/a>\u00a0of many of the Administration\u2019s tariffs, but it\u2019s likely that tariffs will continue to dominate public discourse about trade, especially as they pertain to agriculture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tariffs are a tax on imports paid for by the importing company, with added costs often passed on to consumers. They have long been used around the world as a form of market control, generally implemented as a way to encourage the manufacturing and consumption of domestic products. By raising the prices of imported goods, tariffs would theoretically boost domestic economies by encouraging domestic production. They have the potential to be used as an economic policy tool to support the common good. For decades, NFFC\u2019s position has been that tariffs for agricultural products are a policy tool that have the potential to advance trade justice \u2013 primarily by limiting the importation of corporate-driven commodities that are produced with lower labor and environmental standards and undercut US producers.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the Trump Administration has not engaged tariffs as a tool for thoughtful economic policy that benefits family farmers or the working class, instead using them to force the administration\u2019s foreign policy agenda on other countries. For example, the administration has attempted to use tariff discussions to weaken Canada\u2019s supply management system, which structures its dairy, poultry, and egg industries to ensure family farmers there have stable markets and can make a decent income. The Administration has also targeted countries like India, where\u00a0tariffs have been used as leverage<\/a>\u00a0to undermine food security programs there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This approach has caused\u00a0some markets that farmers rely on<\/a>\u00a0to vanish, adding to the financial strain of farm debt and damage from natural disasters. It has increased the costs of inputs that farmers rely on to grow crops, like fertilizer and equipment. And it has increased\u00a0food prices\u00a0even further, leaving working families struggling to put food on their tables.\u00a0<\/a>US farmers and working families have not benefited from this administration\u2019s trade policy because its use of tariffs fails to address the root causes of the current farm crisis: market consolidation and volatility, corporate power grabbing, and globalized free trade.\u00a0At home and abroad, farmers and working families are paying the price while industrial agriculture reaps the benefits.<\/p>\n

Current global trade policy, centered around free-trade agreements, incentivizes companies to maximize profits by shifting production to countries with minimal labor rights, consumer, and environmental protections. Policies that advance a free trade agenda have also been criticized for causing domestic job losses and hollowing out local \u2013 and especially rural \u2013 economies. The World Trade Organization (WTO), officially formed in 1995 with significant political support by the US government, is the most emblematic global institution supporting free trade. Since its adoption, it has been\u00a0condemned by many<\/a>\u00a0for undermining sovereignty while prioritizing the profits of multinational corporations over people worldwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The combination of status quo free trade policies with the weakening of domestic economic policies like supply management and price supports has had dramatic adverse impacts on the American agricultural sector. Small-scale farmers both domestic and international have been undercut for decades in service to a false solution centering expansion of export markets in lieu of regulating domestic markets to deliver fair prices. In 2019, for the first time in more than fifty years, the US imported more dollars worth of agricultural products than we exported.\u00a0Now, our agricultural trade deficit is at its highest ever,\u00a0reaching more than $72 billion in 2024<\/a>.\u00a0That means that while the US relies on trade with other countries to ensure the supply of food, the Administration is using tariffs to actively attack those countries. Broad, poorly planned tariffs have the potential to further destabilize our domestic markets in an already tumultuous year for farmers.<\/p>\n

NFFC urges the administration to advance fair agricultural trade policies and ensure that independent small and mid-scale farmers and Congress have a seat at the policy-making table.\u00a0After so many decades of US export-oriented free trade policy, we need\u00a0a new trade framework<\/a>\u00a0based around market transparency, economic justice, environmental sustainability, and human rights. Coupled with investment in local food infrastructure and policy supporting small and mid-scale farmers,\u00a0tariffs can be used to revitalize the economy<\/a>\u00a0and support fair prices and wages for farmers and workers, while ensuring food is accessible and affordable for all who need to eat. Without sound domestic policy in place, they set all of us up for failure. With\u00a0farm debt and bankruptcies surging<\/a>, the stakes are too high to play games with farmers\u2019 livelihoods and therefore everyone\u2019s dinner plates. The administration must commit to a farm trade agenda rooted in economic justice and with the input of independent farmers.<\/p>\n

This article by Samantha Cave and Austin Bryniarski first appeared on the NFFC website on 10 September 2025<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since January, the second Trump Administration\u2019s trade policy has been marked by constant change. The most recent headlines…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[143063,479,49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-433597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-alternative-global-trade-framework","9":"tag-tariffs","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115225292094745827","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}