After two decades of defeats in rural America, Democrats are suddenly putting up a fight in farm country. The party is running competitive Senate races in Iowa, Kansas and other farm states, as well as House races in heavily rural districts that could help it regain control of Congress in January.
Credit (or blame, depending on your party) for this reversal of fortune lies with President Donald Trump’s tariffs and his war with Iran, which have battered farmers and pushed the rural economy into crisis. The Department of Agriculture’s analysts expect farmers’ net incomes to decline by 5.5% this year, as costs rise and receipts fall. The National Agricultural Law Center’s tally of farm bankruptcies jumped 45% last year, and is on pace to rise another 11% in 2026.
Higher costs for processed-food companies also have punishing consequences in rural communities more broadly.
Three different impacts have simultaneously hammered farmers and the agriculture industry.
First, the Trump administration’s tariff hikes raised costs. The president slapped import taxes as high as 50% on a range of products including hoes and plows, barbed wire, screws, wood, pesticides, irrigation equipment and harvesters. As a result, just about everything farmers do — from putting up a fence to spraying for weeds and bugs to harvesting crops — costs more. That has helped dent sales of farm equipment, according to Creighton University’s September Rural Mainstreet Index, meaning less business for local John Deere and Bobcat dealers this year and lower farm productivity in the years ahead.
Higher costs for processed-food companies also have punishing consequences in rural communities more broadly. Last year, after the Commerce Department put tariffs of 50% on tin cans, Del Monte closed its cannery in Modesta, California. Opened over a century ago, the cannery had been the main buyer of California peaches and pears. Its collapse cost 600 jobs at the cannery, vaporized $500 million in annual Central Valley farm sales and forced local farmers to uproot 420,000 peach trees this summer.
Second, U.S. farm exports have struggled as trade partners punch back. America is the world’s top agricultural exporter — 20% of farm receipts come from sales abroad. Last year’s $176 billion in exports included 156 tons of California grapes shipped to sunny Fiji in the South Pacific, and $10,000 worth of biscuits sent to the North Atlantic’s stormy Faroe Islands. This success has helped rural America prosper, but it also makes our farmers uniquely vulnerable targets for retaliation.
Three countries — China, Canada and Mexico — buy half of America’s annual farm exports. Sales to China fell 66% in 2025, with soybean shipments alone collapsing, from $12.6 billion to $3.0 billion, and have only somewhat rebounded during this year’s tariff “truce” with Beijing. Thanks to Trump’s mystifying economic assault on Canada, fresh produce sales to our second-biggest ag market are down 10% this year, while wines, beer and liquor have fallen by two-thirds.
The Republican Party’s hold on politics in rural America has shaped policy, government and law for 20 years. Trump’s decision to upend the farm economy has shaken it.
Third, this spring came Trump’s decision to launch a war with Iran. The consequent halt to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz first spiked global fertilizer prices — up 20% from when the president was inaugurated — and then hit diesel fuel even harder. Farmers need diesel to run tractors, harvesters and irrigation equipment; the trucking firms that move their grain and produce to market use it too. Diesel now costs $6.32 per gallon, up $2.50 from a year ago. The surge in normal gasoline prices hasn’t helped either: As Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook recently noted, transport accounts for a quarter of rural household expenses.
Trump’s policies have crunched agriculture in less direct ways, too. Both the tariffs and the Iran war have pushed up inflation, forcing the Fed to keep interest rates high — a major burden on farmers who borrow heavily to finance their supplies every year.
The administration’s response has been a series of Band-Aids, with improvised emergency aid packages culminating in $12 billion in transfers to farmers at the end of last year. But as rising bankruptcies show, these measures haven’t healed the wounds the administration’s policies have inflicted.
I don’t want to exaggerate the rural pickup opportunities for Democrats this year. Republicans control the vast majority of House districts dependent on agriculture, and will likely continue to do so after this midterm. The same goes for Senate seats for heavily rural states in the Great Plains and the South.
Still, to hazard an agriculture metaphor, some seeds of change might be sprouting. The Republican Party’s hold on politics in rural America has shaped policy, government and law for 20 years. Trump’s decision to upend the farm economy has shaken it. This doesn’t mean Democrats have yet won the affection of farm country voters. But they have their best opening in decades to win a hearing and, once in government, to act on the rural crisis. That means repealing Mr. Trump’s tariffs, stabilizing relations with Canada and Mexico, and passing the farm bill this administration has abandoned, which could have helped modernize rural infrastructure and restore nutrition programs that benefit low-income families and farmers alike. That might begin changing the political landscape for years to come.
The post Trump’s policies are hammering farmers — and putting rural America in play for Democrats appeared first on MS NOW.
Author: Source Author
From MS Now.
Leave a Reply