U.S. President Donald Trumpon Friday slapped tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese products, the first shot in a trade war between the two countries. The move sparked Beijing to immediately impose tariffs on U.S. products worth $34 billion a year — from soybeans and seafood to sport-utility vehicles and whiskey. Here are comments from some U.S. states affected by the tariffs.
ALABAMA:
"The longer this drags out, the more danger there is that we'll see a real drag on our economy. We're going to see Alabama lose jobs, and that's not acceptable,'' Alabama Commerce Secretary Greg Canfield.—Bloomberg
GEORGIA:
"You can't fix trade deficits with trade wars," Jonathan Arn, owner of Carter Pecans in Albany, Georgia.—Southwest Farm Press
ILLINOIS:
Ken Maschhoff, chairman of Maschhoff Family Foods and co-owner of the nation's largest family-owned pork producer, said the farm industry has been "asked to be good patriots. We have been. But I don't want to be the patriot who dies at the end of the war. If we go out of business, it's tough to look at my kids and the 550 farm families that look us into the eye and our 1,400 employees."—CNBC
IOWA:
"In our community, it's not just the pork producer that relies on the money coming out of the pig," said Trent Thiele, a pig farmer in Elma. "When you build a barn, we have the cement contractor, the people building the barns, the electricians, maintenance on the roads: everything. They're all relying on some of that money out of that pig. Without that, those people working would be out of a job."— NBC
KENTUCKY:
"We're the victims in a fight that we didn't pick," Eric Gregory of the Kentucky Distillers' Association.—National Public Radio
LOUISIANA:
"Because Louisiana is so connected with international trade and commerce, no matter what happens we're going to feel some pain," Eddy Hayes, international trade lawyer in New Orleans.—The Baton Rouge Advocate
MINNESOTA:
"There's going to be an awful lot of battles lost on the way," said Tim Velde, a fourth-generation farmer in western Minnesota's Yellow Medicine County, who is bracing for tariffs on American soybeans. "I don't see anybody winning." – The New York Times
MISSOURI:
"People are darned worried about it," said C. Brooks Hurst, a soybean farmer in Tarkio, Missouri, and president of the Missouri Soybean Association.— St. Louis Public Radio
PENNSYLVANIA:
"I'm just hoping that President Trump doesn't forget about the small companies and the little guys that helped put him in office," Gary Hartman, president ofCheetah Chassis, in Berwick, Pennsylvania, a 170-person company that the steel frames used to transport shipping containers across the country."He'll have a hard time if he doesn't help us."— CNN
TENNESSEE:
"Our margins are already pretty slim over the last two to three years because of the farm economy," said Alan Meadows, a fifth-generation farmer in Halls, Tennessee. Two-thirds of his2,500-acre farm consists of soybeans. ``The tariffs are putting my livelihood, so to speak, in jeopardy. We can't afford to lose our Chinese market."– The Tennessean
WISCONSIN:
"It's a nightmare,'' ErricoAuricchio, president of BelGioioso Cheese Inc — The Wall Street Journal
