Trump called for major tariffs at debate. Why aren’t KC-area Republicans embracing them?

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Former President Donald Trump had just started delivering his first answer at Tuesday’s presidential debate when he promised to impose major tariffs, part of his ever-growing interest in frequently deploying them to mold the American economy.

As a candidate, Trump has proposed a 10% or 20% baseline across-the-board tariff on all imports, as well as a 60% tariff on imports from China.

“Other countries are going to finally, after 75 years, pay us back for all that we’ve done for the world,” Trump said at the debate. “And the tariff will be substantial in some cases.”

Top Republicans in the Kansas City region are not rushing to embrace Trump’s vision.

A week before the debate, several Kansas congressional candidates gathered at a Kansas Chamber of Commerce event to cultivate support among the state’s business community. Addressing an audience of several dozen at the Topeka Country Club, Republicans – along with Democrats – painted themselves as fundamentally supportive of free trade and hesitant to turn to sweeping tariffs.

The event illustrated the balancing act facing Republicans skeptical of Trump’s calls for broad tariffs but who don’t want to risk antagonizing the party’s standard bearer and his supporters. The candidates delicately avoided directly criticizing Trump. At the same time, they made the case that tariffs should be a limited tool used under the right circumstances – an implicit rejection of Trump’s call for their wider use.

“My philosophy is less is better,” said Republican Derek Schmidt, the former Kansas attorney general now running for Congress in the state’s 2nd District, which includes northern Wyandotte County and much of eastern Kansas.

For years, tariffs – which effectively set a tax on certain goods that come into the country – have typically been viewed as a last resort in Washington. The costs of tariffs, and retaliatory measures imposed by other countries, often lead to higher prices for both businesses and consumers.

Kansas and Missouri residents stand to suffer from any ramped up trade wars that would result from extensive tariffs. Farmers and other agricultural producers are particularly sensitive to tit-for-tat trade disputes as they depend on access to international markets to help sell their commodities. When Trump during his first term triggered a trade war with China and other countries in 2018, Kansas lost out on hundreds of millions in agricultural exports.

While the Biden administration has kept some of Trump’s first-term tariffs in place, Vice President Kamala Harris isn’t promising a massive expansion of tariffs if elected. Harris has branded the former president’s plan a “Trump sales tax.”

When the United States imposes tariffs, they are typically paid by American buyers who often pass the costs on to consumers in the form of higher prices. In theory, tariffs can make it easier for American-made goods to compete in the marketplace. In practice, targeted countries often impose retaliatory tariffs in response, making it more difficult for American businesses to sell their products abroad.

“I’m made uneasy by some of the discussion in the campaign trail – not our campaigns, but more generally in the country – about these sort of very aggressive, very large tariff increases,” Schmidt said. “That is not where I’d like to see us go.”

But Schmidt also acknowledged that the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, a 1990s deal that promoted trade between the United States, Canada and Mexico, had led to negative consequences for some in the region. Trump was sharply critical of the agreement, which his administration renegotiated.

“I saw a major employer in my hometown of Independence (Kansas) close up shop after NAFTA, move its operations just south of the border and reopen,” Schmidt said, adding that hundreds of people lost their jobs.

Another Republican candidate also expressed skepticism about the wide use of tariffs.

“At the end of the day, I’m a free market guy,” Republican Prasanth Reddy, a physician who is running against Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids in Kansas’s 3rd Congressional District, told the audience, adding that he isn’t a huge fan of tariffs but that they can be helpful in specific situations.

Trump’s foray into trade wars in his first term has left some Kansas City-area farmers apprehensive about whether more turbulence is ahead.

In 2018 Trump imposed tariffs on aluminum and steel imports, along with tariffs on numerous goods from China. In turn, China, the European Union and other major trading partners imposed their own tariffs on agricultural and other products.

Between mid-2018 through 2019, the retaliatory tariffs reduced U.S. agricultural exports by more than $27 billion, according to a 2022 study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Soybeans accounted for about 71% of the losses.

Kansas was one of the hardest-hit states. The state had about $955 million in annualized losses, about 7% of the nationwide total, according to the USDA study. Only Iowa and Illinois experienced greater losses.

“I think we all know the devastation that the tariffs have brought on to our Kansas farmers. It has been devastating,” Nancy Boyda, a former Democratic congresswoman now running against Schmidt, said at the Kansas Chamber of Commerce event.

“Tariffs sound like they’re a really good thing. It’s a very populist message. But the fact is … they’re a tax,” Boyda said.

Ag trade deficit

For the past three years, the United States has imported more agricultural products than it exports. USDA estimates that in 2024 the deficit will reach a record $32 billion, up from $16.7 billion in 2023. The United States has had an agricultural trade deficit only three times in the past half century.

Falling commodity prices and a strong U.S. dollar have been significant contributors to the deficit. The agricultural community believes further disruptions to free trade are unlikely to help the trade deficit.

“When you talk about those trade issues, then, it kind of makes the hairs stand up on the back of everybody’s neck because we know that’s just going to put more downward pressure on commodities, it’s going to make our trade deficit even worse,” said Rick Miller, who sits on the Johnson County Farm Bureau board of directors and owns a 150-acre farm.

Miller suggested Trump’s renegotiation of NAFTA, known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and the signing of other trade agreements marked positive developments. Still, he voiced concern about a forecasted record-breaking agricultural trade deficit for 2024.

Kansas state Rep. Ken Rahjes, an Agra Republican with a long history in agricultural communications, said discussion of tariffs among presidential campaigns “is not a good sign.”

Farmers want good trade policy and want to avoid tit-for-tat conflicts, Rahjes said. The United States and China “may not be best friends,” he said, but need each other for trade.

“We need to be very careful and take a very measured approach is really what I believe farmers are saying,” Rahjes said.

Tariffs plan attacked

Trump’s tariffs plan is a key line of attack for Harris and Democrats across the country.

In Tuesday’s debate, Harris described the tariff plan as a 20% tax on “everyday goods that you rely on to get through the month.” She said this would cost middle-class families about $4,000 a year.

That figure is roughly reflected by estimates from the center-right think tank American Action Forum, which in June said Trump’s 10% across-the-board tariff combined with a 60% tariff on Chinese products would cost U.S. households up to $4,300 a year.

U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat, said he believes Trump first turned to tariffs years ago because he didn’t have an answer to how to pay for his proposals.

“I think he got out there and nobody has figured out a way for him to retreat,” Cleaver said.

Tariffs should be limited to national defense and abusive economies, said U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican.

They cannot be a normal practice, he said and should be imposed in a focused way to achieve a result – not applied broadly.

Asked whether he believes most Republicans agree with him, Moran replied simply: “I don’t know.”