Utah Farm Bureau president appears on CNN to talk impact of trade tariffs
Published
7/23/2018
Utah Farm Bureau President Ron Gibson was featured in a CNN report late last week talking about the impacts of trade on Utah and American agriculture, and how family farmers are caught in the crosshairs of the bigger national debate on trade. With the farm economy in a decade-long struggle in terms of revenues -- particularly with dairy -- trade tariffs are hitting agriculture particularly hard.
Though many view the big picture when it comes to the topic of tariffs, they do have a very real impact on local farmers.
"We have 160 dairy farms in Utah right now," Gibson explained. "It's a very real possibility that by the end of this year, we could have 100."
"I hope that one morning President Trump's just going to wake up and send out that 3:30 in the morning tweet that says tariffs are gone," said Gibson. "But the problem I have is once he sends that tweet, are the buyers across this world going to come back to American agriculture? Or are they going to be so upset at us over this whole mess that we don't get our customers back?"
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