New campaign highlights trade war

Jul 27, 2018

Farmers for Free Trade hopes President Trump repairs trade relationships

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

Farmers for Free Trade launched a media effort to raise awareness about the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and some of its global partners.

Yesterday, the national organization introduced its Tariffs Hurt the Heartland campaign. The four-month initiative will feature TV, digital, radio and print ads across the country to highlight the challenges farmers face because of disrupted trade agreements.

The group will also hold townhall meetings and develop an interactive map to explain how tariffs impact U.S. communities.

“To push back against this advancing trade war, we are going to tell the stories of the jobs, businesses and consumers who are too often being ignored by the people who make our nation’s policies but fail to consider the real-life cost,” Brian Kuehl, executive director of Farmers for Free Trade, said in a statement yesterday.

The organization has released one video in Iowa, Pennsylvania and Michigan to kickstart the campaign. Farmers for Free Trade will circulate the video to more states soon.

The 30-second video, titled Rounding Error, features a clip of Peter Navarro, director of the National Trade Council, saying that “the amount of trade we’re affecting with the tariffs is a rounding error.”

Farmers are hopeful these messages, combined with mounting pressure from voters, will convince lawmakers to repair damaged trade relationships.

“Time and money need to be spent on failing infrastructure and strengthening trade relationships, not making hardworking family farmers the pawns of a political game,” Megan Dwyer, a soybean producer from Coal Valley, Ill., told Illinois Business Daily yesterday.

The Tariffs Hurt the Heartland campaign is the second effort Farmers for Free Trade has launched to get the President’s attention.

In March, the organization launched its Voice of the Farmer initiative, which encouraged American farmers to record short videos highlighting the importance of trade.

Farms.com has reached out to Farmers for Free Trade for comment on its new media campaign.

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