Farmer: I won't vote for Trump again without an end to high tariffs, trade war with China President Trump makes a lot of big promises to farmers like me who voted for him in 2016. But the burden of his trade war with China is even bigger.

Rick Telesz | Opinion contributor

Show Caption Hide Caption Trump's tariffs: the good, the bad and the ugly President Trump's 'America First' approach has relied on slapping tariffs on countries, such as China and Mexico, which have led to current trade wars. What is a tariff and how do they work? We explain.

President Donald Trump made a big promise last month to American farmers who’ve been battered by his trade war. After announcing what he is calling “phase one” negotiations with China, the president sat behind his desk in the Oval Office and told farmers that they’re now going to need to “buy more land and get bigger tractors.”

China, the president promised, had just committed to more than double their pre-trade war imports of American farm products to between $40-$50 billion each year. It was a win, he said at a rally that evening, that would soon have farmers begging and pleading with him that they couldn’t produce enough exports to keep up with demand.

It’s not the first promise he has made to farmers like me. At the American Farm Bureau Federation convention in January, he told over 5,000 farmers that “we’re doing trade deals that are going to get you so much business, you’re not even going to believe it. Your problem will be: 'What do we do? We need more acreage immediately. We got to plant.' ”

He was right about one thing, increasingly farmers don’t believe it. More and more farmers see his trade promises for what they are: hot air into the cold wind.

Farmers aren't that easy to fool

I am among those Americans who twice cast my vote for President Barack Obama and then supported President Trump in 2016. But my breaking point with the current president came when I realized his trade war had caused 20% losses for the 750-acre family farm I help run in western Pennsylvania. We produce soybeans, corn and dairy products, all of which have been targeted by tariffs. We operate on margins of 1-2%, which made the losses severe.

China's economy is weakening: China is feeling the pain of U.S. tariffs. Now it's time for negotiators to secure a deal.

After months of patiently waiting, I’ve started speaking out. Thankfully, I’m not alone.

In Minnesota this summer, farmers at a state agriculture fair made national headlines when they confronted Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue about how fed-up they were. They told the secretary that their markets were withering away, that being a “patriot” is not helping to stave off bankruptcy, and that they’re not “starting to do great again” as the president tweeted. Their comments weren’t met with boos from their fellow farmers; they were met with applause.

Farmers aren’t as easily fooled as the president thinks. We are the put-up-or-shut-up type. And for more than a year now, instead of progress, we’ve seen empty promises. Instead of bringing down tariffs, at best we have seen temporary pauses and at worst we’ve seen tariffs go even higher. Instead of delivering open markets, we’ve been given Band-Aid subsidies that fail to stem the bleeding.

That’s part of why this latest promise rings so hollow. The truth is that even if China could somehow magically buy $20-plus billion more in agriculture exports annually, the retaliatory tariffs at the root of the problem would still be in place.

Policies must make farmers whole

It’s also an issue of what baseline we are using to judge progress. To come close to making farmers whole again, the president needs to account for the damage already done. For example, the volume of soybean exports to China dropped 74% in a single year thanks to the trade war. I export 100% of my beans. That’s the new normal that we need to recover from.

The sad truth is that the damage from the trade war for farmers might never be undone. The past two years have given our competitors a leg up in catering to the 1.3 billion people in China who are increasingly seeking foreign produce, meat and dairy. Our advantage in soybean exports over our chief competitors in South America, for example, has been all but frittered away. We are fighting just to keep our existing customers.

Trade talks more fickle than the weather: Trump's failed US-China trade talks have American soybean farmers drowning in tariffs

For there to be any hope, empty promises and half measures need to end and real dealmaking needs to begin. It’s great that the United States and China are negotiating what they see as phase one, but phase one for farmers was when the tariffs kicked in a year and a half ago. It’s time to get to the cutting-tariffs phase.

As the calendar turns to 2020, I have no doubt we’ll hear even more promises about protecting farmers, particularly in my home of Pennsylvania. As for me, the only promises I can make are that I won’t be buying tractors or land anytime soon and that, when November 2020 rolls around, if the trade war isn’t a thing of the past there’s no way I’ll be voting for President Trump.

Rick Telesz is a dairy and soybean farmer in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. He operates Telesz Family Farm.