Rural voters understand that tariffs are a tactical tool. And so far, it's worked for President Trump. But it won't work forever.
Mark Yonkman is the founder of the newly created Super PAC Reclaim the Rural Vote and a rural vote messaging expert. Mark’s background straddles not only the rural and urban worlds but the black/white, gay/straight, and farm/professional worlds as well. Read more of his Rural Whisperer columns here.
Trump threatened tariffs against Colombia and Colombia immediately caved. Indeed, not only is Colombia using their presidential jet to ferry Colombians back home, the Colombian president has urged all undocumented Colombians to return home and is offering them a few hundred dollars if they do so.
The threat of tariffs worked. But there is a cost.
President Trump is trying this a second time with Canada and Mexico. He wants both countries to take responsibility for border security, particularly Mexico.
After another round of talks with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, the White House said tariffs on Mexican goods would be delayed for a month while Mexico sends another 10,000 troops to patrol the Mexican-United States border.
If Mexico seals its Southern border and patrols its Northern border, the hope is that any immigrant coming to the U.S. to work will go through the normal immigration process and be vetted before entering the country.
Shortly thereafter, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the tariffs imposed by both countries would be paused for 30 days while they negotiate a border deal.
Rural voters applaud these efforts and assume that this will all be resolved in a matter of weeks, and not months. Yes, this would be a disaster in the long term, but rural voters do not expect that to happen.
China is a different issue. President Trump recognizes that China is pulling ahead in multiple technology sectors, is already at 70% of the GDP of the U.S. and already exceeds America’s industrial capacity.
We have grown dependent on China. His solution is to wean us off Chinese goods – a 10% starting tariff seems reasonable to the rural voter.
The speculation is that future tariffs will target specific essential goods. The Chinese tariffs are not a border issue, they are a national security issue and rural voters do not expect them to go away.
Importantly, rural voters would be happy to see some of that Chinese manufacturing move to Mexico.
How did the legacy media and experts respond?
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Sommers said on CNN that these actions are “bizarre” and that he can’t understand why this is good strategy nor why the Mexican and Canadian tariffs are higher than those imposed on China. (Even though we just experienced an immediate success with Colombia).
He is completely ignoring the point of the tariffs, which is to bully Mexico and Canada into ensuring that no one passes into the U.S. other than through an official border crossing point.
This is to be done on their dime, not ours.
Which is why those tariffs are higher than the 10% imposed on Chinese goods. Canadian and Mexican tariffs are temporary. Chinese tariffs are permanent and will increase.
Rural voters get this. The legacy media and “experts” apparently do not.
The real problem with tariff threats
Like the Colombian tariff threat, I suspect Canada, Mexico and the U.S. will reach a solution very quickly. If it results in significantly improved border security at no cost to the U.S., this will be an enormous win for the President.
And once again, the pundits will have been proven wrong and demonstrated that they focus on the wrong issues.
Yet each time we bully with tariffs, we lose a little accumulated good will and trust.
Trump’s strategy makes sense – to him. It is simply a high risk/high payoff strategy. It was the same for his real estate projects – two of them would make billions and the third would fail. The average provided an excellent return.
Eventually this tactic will fail – and we might not have allies that trust us. Then what? We should be pointing out he is gambling with the U.S. economy and our trust and goodwill, not that the bet doesn’t make any sense.
This is an opportunity for Democrats to seize the moment with a better idea
I wrote last year that Canada, the United States, and Mexico (and even central America), need to act as a unified defense bloc for the next global conflict and that our low-cost manufacturing of essential materials needs to be physically located in North America – not in China. Global warming is not our existential threat, China is. https://postindustrial.com/stories/kamala-harris-southern-border-strategy/
This isn’t the time to be threatening our allies. In order to prevent war, we need to prepare for war. That means bringing Canada and Mexico even closer in alignment with us, and yes, with borders that are secure, easy to police, with efficient border crossing protocols.
Rural voters do talk about Mexico being our partner in a North American defense bloc – those voters also wax nostalgic about the wonderful relationship (as perceived by them) the Upper Midwest has always had with Mexican workers.
My uncle in his 90’s just said this again last month:
No one wants a factory in our rural county, but why is our low-cost manufacturer of many of our crucial war time goods China, our communist enemy, rather than Democratic and land-linked Mexico? Didn’t we learn anything about supply chains during the Covid epidemic?
Democrats need to get over their aversion of talking about war. Even the Secretary General of NATO recently said that all NATO countries need to be on a war footing at this time. We are not.
A Democratic leader, preferably with a military background, needs to step up and make the case for a cogent alternative. Yes, we need secure borders, but that isn’t strategy – it’s a tactic.
Strategy is making the flow of strategic goods as smooth as possible within North America.
It is also having the United States and Canada help Mexico eliminate its gang and cartel problem.
Helping Mexico secure its Southern border is also crucial, not to mention improving relations among all three nations.
Democrats dropped the ball on the border and have lost the credibility to attack Trump’s tactics. I hear voters say “at least Trump is doing something.” Attacking Trump’s ham-handed bullying approach will get you nowhere without a cogent alternative.
Pete Buttigieg, having enlisted for two tours of duty, could credibly make this case and it would be a long-term investment in his political and social future. So could Elissa Slotkin, who had defense as one of her primary campaign themes.
I suspect that President Trump will win this one and that our borders will become more secure. But he is using up our good will and credibility to get that result.
At some point, his tactics will fail. A new team of Democrats needs to do the leg work now to show that they understand that we shouldn’t be building walls and division among our 3 nations when we should be on a war footing.
The only wall we should be talking about is the one around all of North America. You never know when you will need to pull up the drawbridge against China.
Start this narrative now so that when Trump’s tactics eventually fail, you have the credibility to step in.
