On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Lead,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) stated that, for farmers, “These tariffs have created some short-term pain, but we also think they’re creating long-term gain” through trade agreements and “there is still supply chain disruption, that we’ve had four years of cumulative inflation, and, certainly, the tariffs have exacerbated that as well. What we’re hoping, though, is that this is going to lead to more manufacturing jobs. The bigger challenges in Kansas, to me, are a lack of people for the jobs we have, that these jobs are moving back to America and we can’t keep up, we can’t find the people to do those jobs as well.”
Host Jake Tapper asked, “So, Trump’s farm aid package is likely to help the thousands of farmers in your state of Kansas. Will it be enough to offset their concerns about affordability and whatever damage might be happening because of the tariffs?”
Marshall answered, “Well, Jake, we have a lot of work to do. These tariffs have created some short-term pain, but we also think they’re creating long-term gain. And by that, what I’m talking about is long-term trade agreements.”
Marshall added that the state of affairs this year is the end result of policies from the Biden administration and said, “So, is it enough? No. But these new trade agreements, we’re very, very optimistic about, especially trade agreements where we’re going to be selling more beef and more ethanol.”
After the discussion turned to small businesses, Marshall said that there is “a lot of optimism, optimism around the new tax breaks that they’re going to get on these pro-business tax [policies] from the one big, beautiful bill. But to your point, there is still supply chain disruption, that we’ve had four years of cumulative inflation, and, certainly, the tariffs have exacerbated that as well. What we’re hoping, though, is that this is going to lead to more manufacturing jobs. The bigger challenges in Kansas, to me, are a lack of people for the jobs we have, that these jobs are moving back to America and we can’t keep up, we can’t find the people to do those jobs as well. But we certainly are all looking forward to some stabilization when it comes to these tariffs.”
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