Diesel costs, export losses and aid define the dispute
A Guardian commentary by Steven Greenhouse argues that Donald Trump’s policies are producing a political opening for Democrats among rural voters who backed the president. Greenhouse describes Kansas, one of the deepest-red and most rural states, as a state that could elect its first Democratic senator in nearly a century. Polls cited in the commentary show Republican Senate candidates in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas stand a good chance of losing their races, even though Trump won Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas by 13 percentage points or more in 2024.
The analysis reports that diesel rose nearly 70%, reaching a record $6.52 a gallon in late September before easing to $6.32, compared with an average of $3.75 before the war. Greenhouse describes diesel as a key input for farmers who use it to power tractors and combines. He says the price spike cost most farmers thousands of extra dollars when many were barely breaking even, while farm bankruptcies jumped 85% over two years ago.
The commentary also documents a shift in China’s soybean markets. Before Trump’s first term, the United States and Brazil each supplied about 40% of China’s soybean imports. The analysis says the United States now supplies 23%, Brazil more than 60% and Argentina 10%. Greenhouse attributes the change to Trump’s repeated trade wars with China and China’s search for more reliable, less antagonistic trading partners. With China importing about $60 billion in soybeans annually, the analysis calculates a $10 billion annual loss in US soybean exports.
Greenhouse said no one was alleging that Trump deliberately hurt farmers, but wrote: “When Trump plunged the US into the Iran war and his many trade wars, he showed little concern about what those decisions might mean for rural America.” He says it was nearly inevitable that Trump’s moves would batter farmers by reducing soybean and other farm exports and raising the prices of fuel, fertilizer and farm equipment. He also says Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” made major cuts to food assistance and included $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts, which he said would cause an estimated 1.8 million rural Americans to lose health insurance.
The analysis cites a KFF/AP poll in which roughly six in 10 rural voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy, while around half believed the economy was in worse shape than when he returned to office. A Fox News poll found that nearly two-thirds of rural voters backed Trump in 2024, compared with less than half — 49% — who said they support GOP candidates this fall. Greenhouse says many rural voters in Kansas, Iowa and elsewhere soured after Trump won farm country handily in 2024, and notes that Trump was traveling across Kansas, Iowa and other states during the midterm campaign’s final weeks. Many backed Trump because he promised to cut prices, including energy prices, and vowed not to plunge the US into unnecessary, expensive wars overseas; Greenhouse says many now feel betrayed because Trump began what the commentary calls an unnecessary, expensive war against Iran.
Greenhouse says the accumulated dismay could go far to elect Democratic Senate candidates Josh Turek in Iowa, Adam Hamilton in Kansas, Roy Cooper in North Carolina and James Talarico in Texas, as well as independent progressive Dan Osborn in Nebraska. He cites a Wall Street Journal headline saying, “Republicans are facing the worst political environment in farm country in decades.” The commentary says farmers who traditionally backed Republicans want to send a message to the party controlling the White House, Senate and House. Many are angry that GOP lawmakers have not sought to protect farmers by fighting Trump’s tariffs and the war against Iran.
Trump announced on Monday at a rally in Kansas that he would provide $8 billion in emergency aid to US farmers through what he called the Harvest Fuel Relief Program. The announcement followed a previous $12 billion bailout of farmers announced last December. Greenhouse wrote, “It seemed like a desperate, last-ditch effort to rescue Kansas’s incumbent Republican senator, Roger Marshall.” He also wrote that Trump had long sought to shovel money, often lots of money, to people who were angry at him, and described Trump’s proposal to give $5,000 to every American adult as his “shameless plan.”
The commentary reports that ranchers in Texas, Kansas, Nebraska and other farm states objected to Trump’s plan to import roughly 660 million pounds of tariff-free beef, which was aimed at cutting beef prices by 25%. Greenhouse says tariffs pushed up beef prices, one of the ways they angered consumers. The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association said the import plan would undercut the struggling industry’s stability.
Jon Tester, a third-generation Montana farmer and former US senator, said, “He has sold out rural America with his policies.” The Cato Institute, described in the commentary as a Republican-friendly conservative think tank, said Trump’s “tariffs are inflicting serious damage” on farmers by raising input prices and causing exports to decline by billions of dollars. The institute contrasted those effects with Trump’s description of a “golden age” for farmers, and the commentary used the tariff damage to explain the 85% jump in farm bankruptcies over two years ago.
In an article last month, the American Farm Bureau Federation said high diesel and fertilizer prices had created a “record-high input cost environment” in which “no major row crop,” such as soybeans or corn, “is projected to clear break-even” this year. At a recent news conference in Washington, Nebraska Farmers Union president John Hansen said farmers were “facing the worst economic and financial crisis since the farm crisis of the 1980s,” when many farms went under because of sky-high interest rates. Hansen attributed the crisis to “the misuse of tariffs,” record-high agricultural input costs, soaring fertilizer costs and high interest rates.
Hansen added: “Just when farmers need to expand markets for their products, the president seems to be at war with our nation’s top three trading partners: Mexico, Canada and China. When trade wars break out, farmer noses always bleed first and worst and longest.”
Kansas farmer Vance Ehmke told the Hastings (Nebraska) Tribune, “Compared to last year, our fuel bill is $50,000 higher,” and said fertilizer would be “at least another $20,000 or $40,000 increase.” Ehmke added, “That’s all due to Trump and his war in Iran. We are madder than hell about it.” He also said, “I want to tell you that I am a Republican, and I’m pissed.”
North Carolina farmer Matt Bell, who voted for Trump in 2024, told CBS News, “Everything we touch has gone up. We’re in a position now where we’re mad and ready to be heard.” Iowa soybean and corn farmer Nancy Danner told the Wall Street Journal, “We need to get some other voices in there to push back a little bit on this stuff,” and “We need as many changes as we can get.” Danner said she plans to vote only for Democrats in November.
South Dakota business executive John Tsitrian, who writes about rural America, wrote, “Farmers are hurting thanks to Trump’s apocalyptic screw-up.” He identified the loss of global markets caused by Trump’s repeated trade wars as perhaps the biggest mistake and said it had caused long-lasting “structural damage” to US farmers. While acknowledging that farmers need emergency aid, Tsitrian wrote, “Today’s tough farm economy, in regular need of federal cash infusions, is the result of a disaster that has a specific name attached to it: Donald Trump. Unlike most disasters, this one was utterly foreseeable.”
Greenhouse writes that rural America faces “fast-increasing frustration, dismay and anger” about economic conditions, Trump’s policies and GOP lawmakers whom farmers have long supported. Hansen said, “This Republican-led Congress has not done their job,” adding, “They have not helped our nation’s farmers in our time of need, and it is time for a change.” The commentary concludes that the farm economy could shift the partisan balance in states that were central to Trump’s 2024 victory. Greenhouse is a journalist and author focused on labor and the workplace, as well as economic and legal issues.