Farmers Stick With Trump, Despite Trade-War Pain

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About two months into the Trump presidency, Ron Prestage clutched a shovel and grinned at a photographer on an Iowa cornfield. He had $309 million riding on 160 acres near the town of Eagle Grove, the site of a future pork plant that would help his family’s company, Prestage Farms Inc., tap surging U.S. exports.

Just weeks after bulldozers began rolling, though, President Trump came within a pen stroke of upending Mr. Prestage’s plans, preparing to announce the termination of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trade battles with Mexico, Canada and China that followed cut into pork-producer profits in a three-year roller-coaster ride that threatened the Prestage family’s biggest-ever investment. “He’s made things more volatile, with the saber-rattling,” said Mr. Prestage, 65. “It does create a lot of angst and concern about, ‘Oh my God, what is he doing?’ ”

Yet Mr. Prestage plans to vote for Mr. Trump, as he did in 2016. He and many other farmers say they believe a Biden presidency would bring stricter environmental regulations and higher taxes, among other concerns. Many are in competitive Midwestern states that might tip the election. A September poll by agricultural publication Farm Futures found 75% of farmers surveyed in July planned to vote for Mr. Trump, compared with 72.6% ahead of the 2016 election.

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Some farmers say Mr. Biden would be a welcome change, including Chris Petersen, 65, who raises hogs near Clear Lake, Iowa. Mr. Trump’s trade moves, he said, will drive importers like China toward producers such as Brazil or Ukraine. He feels USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue caters more to big farming operations over small ones.

Under a Biden administration, Mr. Petersen said, farmers would have a better shot at fair treatment by big agribusinesses, and rural America would have better access to health care. As for Mr. Trump, he said, “The farmers have gotten taken to the cleaners by his policies.”

His fellow Midwest farmers mostly side with Mr. Trump. About 82% of Iowa farmers in a September poll by agriculture-industry publisher Farm Journal Inc. said they intended to vote for Mr. Trump and 12% for Mr. Biden; in a 2016 Farm Journal poll, 84% planned to vote for Mr. Trump, 6% for Hillary Clinton .

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/farmers-election-trump-biden-trade-war-11602693377 (subscription)