by Tyne Morgan, AgWeb.com

President Donald Trump has been clear since the campaign trail: Tariffs are a tool he would use aggressively during his presidency, and that’s exactly what the president is doing as tariffs have become a bit of a trademark during Trump 2.0 and the first 100 days.

As he prepares to impose more tariffs on April 2, Trump said Monday that he will impose tariffs of 25% on any nation that purchases oil from Venezuela.

“Venezuela has been very hostile to the United States and the freedoms which we espouse. Therefore, any country that purchases oil and/or gas from Venezuela will be forced to pay a tariff of 25% to the United States on any trade they do with our country,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

As both targeted and blanket tariffs are applied, retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agriculture are also caught in the middle of the latest trade war. How do farmers feel about this? That’s exactly what we wanted to uncover during the latest AgWeb poll.

The latest AgWeb poll asked, “Do you support President Donald Trump’s use of tariffs as a negotiation strategy?” And even though the majority of farmers say they don’t support Trump’s use of tariffs, according to the recent AgWeb poll, it wasn’t on overwhelming majority.

Out of the nearly 3,000 farmers who responded,

54% responded “no”
41% responded “yes”

The poll then followed-up by asking, “Do you believe USDA will compensate farmers for losses if agriculture is affected by a trade war?”

The responses here were much more mixed.

36% responded “no”
34% said “yes”
30% responded they were “unsure”

What are farmers saying in the field? Michelle Jones, a fourth-generation farmer in south central Montana was asked the question about if she supports Trump’s use of tariffs on “AgriTalk” last week.

“No, definitely not,” Jones said. “I don’t think that tariffs are an effective negotiation strategy, and I also don’t think that we’re truly being surgical in how we are applying them.”

Jones says there are cases in history where tariffs are effective, but she says in the majority of those cases, the tariffs are extremely targeted and apply to a certain industry or specific country.

“They were also very short-term whereas now, we’re just using them as basically a blanket approach and then escalating when the president gets angry, and then he rolls them back, and it creates too much uncertainty. It’s just not wildly effective,” Jones also said on “AgriTalk.”

“I agree, they were used before the Phase One deal with China, and they were never dealt with under the Biden administration either,” added April Hemmes, an Iowa farmer, who was also on “AgriTalk” last week. “Now all we’ve done is piss off our neighbors with this, the Canadians, bringing Canada and Mexico into it. And now all consumers are going to have to pay up, not just the farmers.”

However, there are some farmers and those in agriculture who support the president’s heavy use of tariffs. One of those is Bubba Horwitz of Bubba Trading, who focuses on the commodity markets.

“I think it’s a great tool to use,” Horwitz said on “AgriTalk.” “I think you’ve seen it with Canada and Mexico to get things that he wanted to get done. And certainly, you can bargain with those tariffs, you can do whatever you want. I think it’s a great negotiating tool, and it certainly can put pressure because remember one thing, the United States of America could stand alone. We could be an island without anybody. We don’t need anybody else to survive, whereas other countries and nations do need us to survive. We could be totally an island and exist perfectly well without the help of any other country in the world.”

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