How milk is getting caught in the middle of Trump's policy agenda
President Donald Trump’s moves in Washington are being felt in the milking barns of an upstate New York dairy farm.
President Donald Trump’s moves in Washington are being felt in the milking barns of an upstate New York dairy farm. There, AJ Wormuth said he’s already seeing costs go up from Trump’s tariffs while the threat of a wider trade war is driving down the price he gets paid for his cows’ milk.
“We’re getting a double whammy — we’re getting lower prices and higher costs,” said Wormuth, who has 3,600 dairy cattle at his farm, Half Full Dairy.
While none of Trump’s policies have specifically targeted the milk industry, dairy farmers say they have been caught in the fray on a number of fronts. Their stories illustrate the fast pace of change across the federal government at the beginning of the second Trump administration, as well as the intersection of two policy areas — immigration and the economy — where voters are giving Trump markedly different grades so far.
Cows at Half Full Dairy in Elbridge, N.Y. Meredith Heuer / The New York Times / Redux fileTariffs are increasing costs for farmers while market jitters over falling U.S. dairy sales overseas are driving down milk prices. Meanwhile, Trump’s moves to step up deportations could affect the industry’s workforce, since immigrants are estimated to make up about half of dairy workers. And concerns are growing about the risk of bird flu, which has been spreading among dairy cattle for the past year.“There’s just so much uncertainty about everything right now,” said Annie Watson, who has 70 cattle on an organic dairy farm in Maine. “As dairy farmers, we work in three-year cycles — from when a calf is born on our farms until it becomes a milking cow. Nothing happens quickly on our dairy farms. So to have policies put forth that take effect very, very quickly, it can often be challenging for those of us that work in this sort of cycle.”
Trump has said he plans to announce sweeping tariffs on goods from across the globe on April 2, and he has already put additional 20% tariffs on imports from China along with a 25% tariff on all imports of automobiles, steel and aluminum. The president has threatened, but so far delayed, a 25% tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada.
Rating: 5