Republican President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Mexico and Canada and the consequences that would have come with them have been averted for the time being, but that does not mean the looming prospect of a global trade war with the U.S. at the center has not invoked fear in Mississippi’s largest industry.
Agriculture produces roughly $9 billion annually in Mississippi, making for around a fifth of the state’s total economy. On a national scale, the impact farmers have hovers in the trillions with many rural areas not only in Mississippi but also in other states flooded with worries about how current and future tariffs may affect the industry.
Mike McCormick is the longtime president of the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation, a general farm organization that often serves as the voice between the agriculture sector and Washington. He said the industry is the first in line to suffer from the brunt of any tense trade negotiations happening between the U.S. and its critical trading partners.
“Farmers are going to be the tip of the sphere on this. They’re the ones who are going to feel the pain first and probably have to deal with it the longest when we get in trade disputes,” McCormick said.
Mississippi’s three largest agricultural trade partners are Mexico, Canada, and China, which happen to be the three countries Trump targeted with his Saturday pen stroke to impose tariffs. Before Tuesday’s start date, in which the import taxes were set to go into effect, both Mexico and Canada agreed to appease the American president over border security in order for conversations to continue without immediate repercussions for businesses and consumers.
To initiate a 30-day pause on the tariffs, after first asserting that retaliatory tariffs were to come, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum agreed to deploy 10,000 members of its national guard to the southern border to address drug trafficking. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to spend $1.3 billion on a plan to further secure the northern border as Trump’s main concerns at both are illegal immigration and fentanyl trafficking.
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