Iowa manufacturers and producers gather to share stories of ongoing economic turmoil amid tariff uncertainty

SWISHER — Iowa manufacturers’ and farmers’ balance sheets have been impacted by heightened import costs and uncertain foreign export relations, and bottlenecks at various points in their production processes — whether they are increased costs to import necessary machinery or threats to export opportunities — are weighing heavy on them.

Prominent voices in the Iowa business and agriculture economics sectors gathered Tuesday in Swisher for a town hall hosted by Farmers for Free Trade, a national nonprofit free trade advocacy group.

The event — which sought to answer questions about the trajectory of agriculture production in Iowa — was the seventh of 10 town halls planned to be held before the end of July. Each event had a regional focus, such as Arizona’s pertaining to commodity imports and an event in Nashville, Tennessee incorporating commentary on local distilleries, said FFT Executive Director Brian Kuehl.

Iowa’s agriculture industry is the foremost producer of corn and soybeans in the nation, and farmers rely on both importing top-dollar production equipment as well as exporting commodities outside the U.S.

According to a report by FFT, the impact of souring international trade relations is drastically impacting farmers’ commodity exports, and tariffs on key import products like unwrought aluminum, machinery parts, and insecticides risk kicking Iowa producers out of the web of international trade, or out of business altogether.

Cedar Ridge Distillery in Swisher hosted the town hall, featuring a panel of four Iowa business leaders and economists:

The panel answered questions submitted by the audience of about three dozen Iowans, including State Rep. Cindy Golding and other individuals from organizations like Iowa’s International Free Trade office in Des Moines. The discussion covered issues like input costs, farmer outlook on this year’s harvest, and how tariffs are impacting different sectors, among others.

Since February, President Donald Trump has issued orders adjusting tariffs for goods coming into the United States. On April 2 — which Trump dubbed “Liberation Day” — the president announced new or higher tariffs for goods coming from dozens of countries.

The U.S. trade war with China reached its height in mid-April, when the Trump administration announced it would impose a 145 percent tariff on all goods coming from China, and China retaliated with a 125 percent tariff on U.S. goods. Both countries later backed down from those tariffs, although today the U.S. maintains a 55 percent tariff, and China 10 percent.

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Hart fielded many of the questions, at least in part, offering an economics backbone to the discussion based on his own research, while other panel members illustrated those points with practical applications.

Quint, of Cedar Ridge, said tariffs and developing international trade issues pose a unique problem for his business as a producer of spirits such as bourbon. Due to international trade treaties, bourbon cannot be made in countries other than the U.S. It’s similar to restrictions that require cognac to be made in France and scotch to be produced in Scotland, Quint said.

“Right now in Canada, the liquor stores in Canada are government controlled, and they've pulled all the American whiskey off the shelves in Canada,” he said. “So we're dead in the water in Canada right now because of the negotiations that are going on.”

Due to the nature of his industry and his reliance on exporting his products, Quint said Cedar Ridge is among the first to experience the effects of hampered trade relations.

Dix said farm equipment manufacturers and retailers like Kinze Manufacturing are suffering from both imports and exports because of the import taxes paid on steel and the export taxes paid on finished equipment.

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“This puts a strain on our customer base as well,” he said. “So not just who we're buying from, but who we're selling to.”

Dix said he’s seen the trade war push more strained business negotiations with farmers in Iowa.

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“The way some of the negotiations are happening today, it's not the way that an ‘Iowa nice,’ Eastern Iowa farmer would probably negotiate with their customers,” he said. “It's a little bit more cutthroat at a high level. I'm just not sure that that's the right approach.”

Hart said the two largest agricultural exports impacted by dampened trade relations are pork and soybean products. That’s because China is a large share of the market for soybean and pork exports from the U.S., and Chinese duties on U.S. goods remain above 30 percent.

Hart criticized the application of tariffs on a large scale, saying effective tariffs are measured and applied strategically. Trade relationships are established over time, and widespread tariffs like those being pursued, Hart said, are not conducive to positive developments in trade.

“Tariffs can be a very effective policy tool,” Hart said. “For tariffs to truly work, though, you want them to be highly targeted at usually an individual country and an individual sector, that way you can truly affect that industry to change.”

These statistics are developing in real time, drawing tens of millions out of Iowa companies’ pockets daily, the report states. Overall, FFT reports Iowa saw a 304 percent increase in tariffs between April 2024 and 2025, resulting in a total $90 million of tariffs paid by importers in April, an increase from the $22 million paid a year prior.

The 304 percent increase comes even as overall import value in Iowa has decreased by 10 percent, according to the report.

In an interview with The Gazette, Hart said despite what Iowa producers faced in April, the tariffs came at the most opportune time for the industry.

“They [tariffs] actually caught most of agriculture at probably the best time of year that they could,” Hart said. “Most of our exports from what we grew this previous fall, they've already been sold and shipped. We're not ready to sell this year's growing crop just yet. And so this is the slow time, usually, when it comes to agricultural trade.”

However, if tariffs continue through the summer and into harvest, producers and futures traders will begin to realize losses.

Comments: 641-691-8669; evan.watson@thegazette.com