U.S. tariffs that kicked in this week for China, Canada and Mexico will mean some hardship for North Dakota farmers, according to the leaders of North Dakota’s Farmers Union and Farm Bureau.

“We will be the number one state that’s hit the hardest,” said Mark Watne, president of the NDFU.

“We have our two biggest customers – China and Mexico, that are going to be searching for additional markets,” he said. “We overproduce food here. We need an export market. So there is no win for agriculture in this system.”

NDFB President Daryl Lies issued a statement regarding the recent tariffs that acknowledged the accompanying hardship but also the need.

“NDFB recognizes the importance of both national security and fair trade. President Trump’s recent tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China are part of a broader effort to ensure that American industries, including agriculture, compete on a level playing field while strengthening our nation’s security,” he said. “We understand that these actions may bring short-term hardships to farmers and ranchers. Agriculture has always been a cornerstone of our state’s economy, and we remain hopeful that negotiations will lead to swift and fair resolutions that uphold the long-term interests of our producers and country.”

Congresswoman Julie Fedorchak, R-ND, said she has been meeting with farm groups on the issue. One of the most urgent actions necessary to help farmers mitigate trade problems is to pass a farm bill, she said at a news conference Wednesday.

“We want to work with the president to try to make these tariffs as targeted as possible, as short as possible, and ultimately work to also establish new markets for our producers so that they can be reaching out and backfilling any areas where they’re seeing less purchases because of the tariffs,” Fedorchak said.

She said if tariffs last, she would support subsidies to farmers to mitigate the hardship. The federal government had previously provided Market Facilitation Payments (MFP) to farmers during trade troubles in Trump’s previous term.

Watne said that aid came from about $30 billion available in the Commodity Credit Corporation. Now that fund is estimated somewhere between $3-5 billion, and Congress is looking at cuts, not more money, for the next farm bill, he said. His concern is the money for another MFP won’t be there.

“I’m hoping that the trade war doesn’t last long. I’m hoping we get through it, but at the end of the day, I don’t think farmers can go to their bank and say, well, it’s likely that we’ll see some ad hoc disaster or an MFP payment in December that will offset this. The bank’s going to say, ‘We don’t put that into your expectations of income,'” he said.

“Right now, the price of our grain is below the cost of production. Right now, there’s farmers that are being told there’s a likelihood they may not get their funding for operating because they can’t cash flow where the prices are,” Watne said. “We’re going into a trade war that’s going to potentially lower the prices more, plus it’s going to raise your input costs on your primary inputs, and you can’t make any money before we start this. So this is an edge of a crisis.”

Fedorchak said she has talked with a number of farmers who stand by the president because of the need to level the playing field for the long term and restore manufacturing in this country.

“We need to use tools like this to get China’s attention, to relevel the playing fields, reestablish them,” she said. “I do support President Trump’s use of tariffs and that tool to try to get better deals for Americans, including North Dakota manufacturers, long term.”