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Many farmers voted for Finstad and Trump because he promised less regulation and greater prosperity for America’s farmers, but Trump’s DOGE efforts, tariff wars and the USAID shutdown are all hurting southern Minnesota farmers by:

Provoking harmful trade wars: Canadian buyers can’t trust the stability of U.S. exports with Trump in office, and Canadians are just flat-out angry and are avoiding U.S. made and produced goods, including farm products. Meanwhile, Americans need to keep buying a majority of their potash — a key component of fertilizers — from Canada, meaning that tariffs stand to jack up costs for American farmers.

Breaking crucial government services: Corn and soybean farmers are upset because Trump cancelled over $3 billion of Biden’s grants that were supposed to help them adopt practices like no-till and cover cropping. Farmers are left holding the bag here with the expectation that they would receive grants that had already been announced. What’s more, Trump’s destruction of USAID further takes $2 billion straight out of American farmers’ pockets.

Allowing big businesses to fleece farmers: For decades, we’ve watched as small farms and family farmers have been driven out of the industry, in favor of multinational corporations that have swooped in. Trump and Finstad are laser-focused on giving a tax cut to millionaires like John Deere’s CEO. That’s not building an economy that works for farmers.

Representative Finstad talks a good game, but his support for these actions are making farmers suffer.

Jason Ludwigson

La Crescent, MN