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Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Can tariffs turn farmers in this critical state away from Trump?
FAIRVIEW, N.C. - For John Ashe, the start of growing season is always a math problem, a complex calculus of educated guesses as he tries to extract every cent from his farm in Reidsville, near the Virginia-North Carolina border. The 57-year-old has been farming all his life. Every year, he mulls changes recommended by the tobacco companies, considers competition from Brazilian soybean farmers and ponders how much labor he needs to hire to eke out enough profit to keep everything going. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. But this year, his biggest numbers challenge has been the tariff policies of President Donald Trump. 'It's always been a guessing game here on the farm, but I think it's more of a guess now than it's ever been in my lifetime,' Ashe said on Wednesday, as he alternated between trimming tobacco seedlings in his greenhouse and checking his phone for tariff updates. The plants will go in the ground this month, but his anxieties center on his soon-to-be-sown crop of soybeans. Most years, a large portion of his harvest would be exported to China, which is the top target in an escalating trade war started by the president. 'I don't really understand how [Trump] feels like he can do this all across the country,' said Ashe, who voted against Trump in the past three presidential elections. He scoffed at the president's admonition that Americans 'Be Strong, Courageous, and Patient.' 'This is not a thing where we can wait three months,' Ashe said. 'This is a critical time. It's going to be critical until harvest. It's amazing to me how some farmers are still proud of him for doing this.' Midway through the spring planting season, farmers in a state whose electoral votes went to Trump in the past three elections are struggling with the unpredictability of his tariffs, which threaten their access to foreign markets and add a heavy dose of uncertainty to an already capricious undertaking. The presidential complications are simultaneously logistical, economic and political in a state whose voters are highly coveted by both political parties. Politicians and political observers have begun to question whether the fallout from the tariffs could upset the GOP's grip on federal elected offices in this battleground state and beyond, depressing voter turnout among groups that lean Republican - like farmers - and the agricultural communities they support. Agriculture and agribusiness contributed more than $111 billion to North Carolina's economy in 2024, according to the NC Chamber, making up one-sixth of the state's overall income, according to the chamber. Trump, who has long said that the United States is on the losing end of international trade agreements, imposed what the White House labeled 'reciprocal' tariffs on 75 countries last week, sending paroxysms through the global economy. Amid the economic shock waves, Trump largely reversed course, though he is still standing by a historic tariff of 10 percent for most imports, along with levies on Chinese goods that stood at 145 percent at the end of the week. China has vowed to 'fight to the end' and raised tariffs on U.S. imports to 125 percent. Trump said he decided to reverse course on most of the tariffs after watching the bond market and seeing that 'people were getting a little bit queasy.' The roller coaster has forced companies and, at times, entire industries to shift overnight, and increased fears that the nation is headed toward a recession that would have economic as well as political consequences. North Carolina's Democrats have had some success in gaining statewide offices - winning eight of the last nine gubernatorial races - but have been largely outmaneuvered when it comes to sending politicians to Washington. Since 1964, only two Democratic presidential candidates have won the state's electoral votes. Michael Bitzer, a professor of politics and history at Catawba College in Salisbury, said the state's Democrats have long nursed hopes that 'the other side shoots itself in the foot. Will the tariff war be the gun that damages Republican turnout?' Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who is up for reelection next year, joined a growing chorus of Trump allies voicing those concerns. At a Senate Finance Committee hearing last week that included a grilling of U.S. Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer, Tillis said he's skeptical that the tariffs will produce the promised economic windfall for his constituents - and wondered if Republicans like him will be punished at the ballot box for administration decisions. 'Everything that we need to do to know what the political environment is going to be about next year, has got to be done by February of next year,' he said. 'Maybe not the president but I intend to run for reelection. I'm just trying to figure out if [voters are] going to feel good about this.' Tillis is one of seven Republican senators who signed on to legislation sponsored by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) that would seek to check Trump's tariff authority. He told The Washington Post on Thursday that there's still a chance the trade war with China and other tariffs will damage the North Carolina economy. 'I'm hoping if China says they're going to fight to the end, I hope that end is fairly short. Otherwise it's going to be a real stressor in the economy in North Carolina,' Tillis said. One Democrat trying to unseat Tillis mentioned the senator's support of Trump's tariffs in his campaign launch video. Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) accused the president of 'governing by chaos' in remarks at a Senate Democratic leadership news conference Thursday: 'Donald Trump is feeling the heat from Democrats and across America about how bad these tariffs are. He is reeling. He is retreating.' Jamie Ager, who grows beef, chicken and pork on a century-old family farm in Fairview, southeast of Asheville, said his customers and colleagues are already feeling the stress. Some of the restaurants that buy his beef and poultry are raising their menu prices because of the increasing costs of seemingly everything. Fellow farmers are worried that their crops will be taxed out of overseas business, he said. Ager, a fifth-generation farmer who runs Hickory Nut Gap Farm, which produces grass-fed beef, poultry and pork, said his greatest fears have not been realized in his segment of the industry, but he worries about the market for the high-end meat and poultry he produces if the U.S. slips into a recession. The Trump administration has already cost him some business. His family's farm provided grass-fed beef to nearby schools, but the program was stopped when Trump halted a raft of Biden-era initiatives soon after his inauguration. The school lunch program didn't have a large impact on the company's bottom line, but it was a point of pride to provide healthy food to local students, Ager said. Now, he wonders what other impacts he'll see. 'I think it's more like unknowns, you know, like, we just don't know what's going to happen,' he said. 'That's generally what these tariffs do, right? It just causes these unintended, weird ripple effects all through the system, and that what's disconcerting.' His brother, Eric Ager, who is a Democratic state representative, said farmers in both the eastern and western parts of the state have been hit by a string of difficulties in the past year, from Hurricane Helene, which drenched and washed away some western farms, to drought, which hit commodity farms in the east. Trump's escalating trade war, following that already difficult agricultural year, was sparking doubts among the expanded coalition of people who had put him in the White House because they had economic fears about his predecessor, the state lawmaker said. 'I don't think there's anything Trump would do that would move the die-hard supporters,' he said. 'Then there's that other group [of Trump voters], who certainly believed that from an economic perspective Republicans would do a better job, and I think those folks are starting to question where we're headed.' The political implications of that question are significant in North Carolina, a state that has seen a long stretch of largely Republican wins in federal elections but whose evolving demographics put it in tantalizingly close reach of Democrats. Democrats have not won a U.S. Senate seat or given their electoral votes to the party's presidential nominee since 2008, Barack Obama's first victory. That nearly two-decade stretch is frustrating for the state's Democrats, who see their state as similar to their more purple neighbor Georgia - demographically, if not electorally. North Carolina Democrats routinely win statewide elected office - the state has a Democratic governor, and four of the 10 statewide elected offices are held by Democrats. Former governor Roy Cooper, term-limited from running for a third term, was briefly on Kamala Harris's shortlist of potential running mates. Both Harris and Trump spent the waning days of the 2024 campaign in North Carolina. Trump ultimately beat Harris by more than 183,000 votes in the state, winning 50.86 percent of the electorate and improving on his margin over Biden in 2020. Ashe, the soybean farmer from Reidsville who voted against Trump all three times he ran, said the president hasn't done much to make him regret his choice. The tariffs hurt, but they have been compounded by cuts at the U.S. Department of Agriculture as Trump and Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service try to scale back the size of government, Ashe said. Those cuts have reduced staff at Farm Service Agency offices in several of the state's rural counties, making it harder for farmers to get assistance with support and subsidy programs. 'This fork in the road thing with DOGE - I guess I'm pronouncing it right - it's playing havoc with USDA,' he said. 'And that's the avenue for farmers to communicate with the federal government for reporting problems. That's supposed to be our lifeline to get some kind of help at a time like this. But they've got their own bloodbath over there.' - - - Theodoric Meyer in Washington contributed to this report. Related Content Ja Morant dares the NBA to punish him, knowing it won't pull the trigger Scientists are 'X-raying' the Amazon, unlocking a lost human history The Smithsonian could be the beginning of Trump's plan to edit history. Or the end.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
NC minimum wage bill faces difficulty becoming law without GOP support
NORTH CAROLINA (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — A group of North Carolina Democrats want to increase the state's minimum wage from $7.25 to $18 within five years. A bill filed Monday would increase the minimum wage in increments through 2030. Rising costs were on the mind of people walking through Charlotte's South End neighborhood on Tuesday afternoon. Those that spoke with Queen City News seemed in favor of the proposal. PREVIOUS | 'I definitely think it needs to be higher; again, that's over the course of years though, you can't just raise it immediately and make everyone happy but I think it, with how the world is going right now, a little bit higher,' said Baylee Blankenbaker. House Bill 353 would start with a bump to $10 in 2026, then increase annually by two dollars until it reaches $18. The bill also allows for state officials to continue increasing the minimum wage depending on the cost of living. 'It's equity and fairness for workers. I mean, we have one of the lowest minimum wages in the country,' said State Rep Marcia Morey. Morey, who represents Durham County, is the bill's author. With only Democratic support, Morey acknowledged she will need Republicans to sign on for the bill to have a chance at becoming law, 'Oh, I'm sure they're thrilled with it…we will do our best to show this is what their constituents need, as much as ours, it shouldn't be a partisan issue.' The North Carolina Chamber told Queen City News they oppose the proposal through a provided statement. 'Due to the intense competition for talent in our state, most NC Chamber members do not pay minimum wage. However, the NC Chamber opposes burdensome mandates on North Carolina employers that restrict their ability to predictably manage their operations. We believe the best way to ensure North Carolina remains a leading state to live, work, and raise a family is not by imposing mandates on employers, but by better aligning our talent development systems with the needs of our modern workforce to connect more North Carolinians with high-paying jobs.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
How North Carolina Senate bill would bring down health care costs
RALEIGH, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — New legislation making its way through the General Assembly in Raleigh promises to bring down health care costs. But the bill also caps how much care the state can require insurers to cover. Senate Bill 24 passed the higher chamber on Wednesday with a vote of 30-15. Three Democrats voted with the majority. State senators file new bill to repeal death penalty in North Carolina SB 24 would cap the types of medical care providers have to cover at 58. The legislation has the backing of several associations, including the NC Chamber. 'We have some of the highest health care costs in the country across all the different spectrums that go into that,' said Gary Salamido, NC Chamber President and CEO. 'And so employers who are the ultimate payers of all the health care costs whether it be an insurance premium, whether it be into their own, have seen the costs continue to go up.' Those opposed include Democratic Buncombe County Sen. Julie Mayfield. Mayfield was one of the 15 No votes on Wednesday. 'The impact of this would be again to sort of lock in place things as they are now and not give us the flexibility to make changes in the future, either to improve patient care or to bring costs down,' said Mayfield. Mayfield argued choosing what is and isn't required to be covered turns into a game of picking winners and losers for healthcare. 'You would think that… and I would like to think that those groups could just get together and have that conversation,' she added. 'But apparently it takes this kind of threatening legislation to perhaps push that conversation forward.' But proponents, like the Chamber, called the measure a common-sense approach to still provide North Carolinians with top-notch health care at a price employers can afford, and that employers can choose what coverage works for their employees. 'Employers and the groups that they engage with that cover their employees know exactly what their employees need,' said Salamido. 'Mandates, additional mandates, only drive up the cost.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
