MADISON — During Tuesday evening's North Alabama U.S. Senate Candidate Forum, those on stage were asked for their personal views on President Donald Trump's non-congressionally authorized reciprocal tariffs.
According to U.S. Senate candidate and long-time cattle farmer, Rodney Walker, while the tariffs have been beneficial for some industries, such as manufacturing, America's soybean producers have taken a significant hit because of them.
"I believe that the tariffs are a good thing when you try to bring back the manufacturing and things like that to the United States," Walker said. "I think that was accomplished. I think that Congress has to codify those acts before they become law. I think there are a lot of the tariffs that need to be codified."
Walker then offered caution following his praise, pointing to retaliatory actions from the Chinese government that caused many soybean farmers to go out of business.
"But I also want to say this, sometimes things need to be tweaked a little bit. In other words, when the tariffs went on China, 30% of your soybean production of the United States goes to China," explained Walker. "The Chinese retaliated on that and did not buy any soybeans whatsoever, and it actually put a lot of American farmers completely out of business. Now, you may not think that means a lot, but if our farmland and our farmers are destroyed, then we're becoming a third-world country, and that's the last thing that we need to do. We must have farms. We must have our food supply protected, and we must look after our farmers."
Added Walker, "I'm not saying anything about a handout. I'm just saying that you don't need to have tariffs that completely cut off your soy bean producing farmers."
In September and October 2025, China bought no U.S. soybeans for the first time in decades, with Brazil quickly becoming China's top supplier of the crop. The change has reportedly cost American soybean farmers billions of dollars in much-needed revenue.
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