Trump tariffs could test unity for Republican candidates in key Senate races

The imminent trade war and it’s tariffs on everything from soybeans to pork threatens to emerge as a critical issue in Senate battleground races the GOP needs to protect its majority this fall.

For now, Republican challengers in a handful of heartland states argue that President Donald Trump deserves room to negotiate in his bid to yield better deals for American businesses and consumers alike. But retaliatory tariffs that countries like Canada and China are aiming squarely at Trump’s base will test their solidarity with the president in a very competitive midterm election year.

Nowhere is the squeeze between Trump and his trade policies more evident than in North Dakota, where Trump is trying to oust incumbent Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. “We’re not starting a trade war, but we’ll finish it,” Trump said last week at a rally in Fargo, as Heitkamp’s Republican challenger, Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., looked on. The next day, in a local television interview, Cramer said that “people are with [Trump] and they want a better deal.” And while Cramer said he’s told the president that farmers need to see results soon, the GOP lawmaker also predicted that “you’re going to see some victories along the way that will continue to make this the right thing.”

North Dakota farmers may see it differently. The Trump administration on Friday is set to slap another $34 billion in duties on Chinese imports; Beijing says it will respond in kind, leveling the same amount in countervailing fees on U.S. goods including soybeans, North Dakota’s top export to the country. The state ships $28 million worth of the product to China annually, according to a report out this week from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – and China consumes roughly a third of American-produced soybeans, a fact growers point to in raising alarms about the tariffs.

Heitkamp, who has highlighted her willingness to work with Trump, sharply criticizes the president’s trade offensive, calling it “poorly planned” and misguided. She argues Trump, who carried her state by nearly 36 points, squandered an opportunity to confront China by also targeting friendlier trading partners. “With each passing day, the administration’s trade policies cause more concern in North Dakota and rural America, especially where farming, ranching, manufacturing, and energy production fuel the economy,” she said in a Facebook post on Tuesday. And she is co-sponsoring legislation to restrict the president’s authority to level tariffs.

“Democrats are emboldened and see tariffs as an opportunity in red states,” says Inside Elections editor and publisher Nathan Gonzales. “It’s too early to know it will play out. But if it results in hardship for farmers that’s felt by a larger share of voters, I can see it being a campaign issue.”

Republican challengers to other Senate Democratic incumbents in states caught in the tariff crossfire say Trump should get the benefit of the doubt as he presses his case — for now.

The president “got elected in large part because people know that he’s a negotiator,” Leah Vukmir, a Wisconsin state senator vying to take on Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), said in a local interview last month. “I am willing to give him the opportunity to create fairer deals for our country.”

But Trump’s trade policy has drawn criticism from other big Wisconsin players — including Gov. Scott Walker, R, also up for reelection. Wisconsin-based Harley-Davidson announced last week it would ship some production abroad (drawing a Twitter lashing from Trump) in response to new levies from the European Union, and other businesses in the state, from cheese makers to cranberry growers, stand to get pinched, too.

In Missouri, Attorney General Josh Hawley, Sen. Claire McCaskill’s, D, Republican competition, has said Trump is “on the right track” and will deliver terms that justify the disruptions. McCaskill’s campaign views trade, however, as an opening, criticizing Hawley for standing by Trump as local businesses begin to bear the burden of the trade hostilities. McCaskill has highlighted the plight of Mid Continent Nail Corp, a Poplar Bluff, Mo. nail manufacturer that last month laid off 60 workers due to rising metals prices. A Brookings Institute report pegged Missouri as the state that would suffer the most from Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs.

Those tariffs, and the threat of more, may already be putting a damper on manufacturing activity that had been gaining steam. “The Trump administration’s trade policy is starting to have a noticeable effect on American manufacturers,” the Financial Times’s Ed Crooks writes. “Both the ISM and IHS surveys found many manufacturers reporting rising costs and increasing difficulties in sourcing components. Timothy Fiore of the ISM said the comments suggested respondents were ‘overwhelmingly concerned’ about the tariffs, and this was before the majority of the announced or threatened measures had hit.”

Dialing up the pressure on Republican candidates, the Koch political network and other major corporate interests opposed to Trump’s trade push are coming off of the sidelines. Candidates “need to lead with courage and conviction rather than play political games,” says James Davis, executive vice president of the Koch-aligned Freedom Partners. “Trade barriers, such as tariffs, only make us poorer.”

First published in The Washington Post.