'Wounded' and 'worried': US farmers struggle financially as loyalty to Trump is tested

In the United States' 2024 presidential election, some of Donald Trump's strongest support came from residents of rural areas—including farmers. But almost eight months into his second presidency, many farmers are struggling.

Those struggles are detailed in two separate articles published in mid-September — one for the BBC, the other for Politico.

While Politico's article describes farmers who are struggling to find essential labor in rural areas of Pennsylvania, BBC's reporting addresses financial hardships farmers are facing — including Trump's steep new tariffs.

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"U.S. agricultural groups warn that American farmers are facing widespread difficulty this year, mostly due to economic tensions with China," BBC reporters Luke Mintz and Anna Jones explain. "Since April, the two countries have been locked in a trade war, causing a sharp fall in the number of Chinese orders for American crops. American farmers are wounded as a result, economists say."

Mintz and Jones add, "The number of small business bankruptcies filed by farmers has reached a five-year high, according to data compiled by Bloomberg in July."

One of the farmers who is sounding the alarm is Tim Maxwell, who lives near Moscow, Iowa.

Maxwell told the BBC, "I'm in a little bit of a worried place…. Our yields, crops and weather are pretty good, but our (interest from) markets right now is on a low. It's going to put stress on some farmers."

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Nonetheless, Maxwell remains a Trump supporter.

The Iowa farmer told the BBC, "Our president told us it was going to take time to get all these tariffs in place. I am going to be patient. I believe in our president."

But South Dakota farmer Gil Gullickson is expressing doubts about Trump's tariffs.

Gullickson told the BBC, "A lot of people say he's just using tariffs as a bargaining chip, as a bluff. But I can say: history proves that tariffs don't end well."

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Read Luke Mintz and Anna Jones' full article for the BBC at this link.