Google Gemini was used to research this piece. This Essay was posted on 9/3/2025.
There was a recent web article in which Nebraska governor Jim Pillen complained that, since Donald Trump announced the growing use of tariffs, China stopped buying Nebraska soybeans. Pillen denied making this complaint, but China, in fact, is buying fewer US soybeans and seeking other sources. Besides losing soybean business, Nebraska faces a labor shortage in farmworkers and meatpackers largely due to Trump’s expanded deportations. Many immigrants work in the farming and meatpacking industries, and they are not showing up for work.
US GDP went down by an annual rate of 0.5% in the first quarter of 2025, but Nebraska’s problems don’t account for second quarter US GDP that went up by an annual rate of 3.3%. Blame Trump’s tariffs for both GDP swings. In the first quarter, US companies went on an import buying binge to protect against higher costs caused by future tariffs. The purchase of imports lowers the calculation of GDP, so it went down in the first quarter. And import purchases in the second quarter were lower because of the large backlog from first quarter imports, so the GDP calculation was inflated by reduced imports. Bottom line, these GDP numbers don’t represent a trend in either direction.
In the long run, expanded tariffs and ICE-related arrests will hurt the economy rather than help. Over time, tariffs will make imports more expensive, and most of the importing is done by US manufacturers and US retailers. Both economic segments will be faced with having to sell higher priced products after markups from the cost of tariffs. And both segments depend on immigrant labor because the US is simply not supplying enough replacement workers as a byproduct of a lower fertility rate.
Over time, tariffs and mass-deportations will only accelerate the shrinking of our economy.
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