State Farmers Supported Trump. Now His Trade Policies Have Them Worried.

The June 5 primary election here in California will be the first major test of a feverish effort by Democrats to fight President Donald Trump’s agenda.

Their aim is to flip a handful of Republican-held congressional districts in the Golden State as part of their broader goal to take control of the House of Representatives in November.

But in the heavily agrarian San Joaquin Valley, where several Republican members of Congress are expected to pull off easy re-elections, the mood is decidedly less feverish.

Many people in the area interviewed for a recent article about the primaries expressed surprise that an election was happening; there, the primaries themselves have included few candidates and baked-in expectations about who will win.

But renewed trade-related tensions with China on Tuesday put a spotlight on how quickly political tides can shift. The unpredictability of the Trump administration’s policy with China has already worried farmers across the state, many of whom voted for Trump and grow staple products like almonds and pistachios that are targeted for tariffs.

In 2016, the state exported $2 billion in agriculture products to China, which is the state’s third biggest foreign market for farm goods.

“There is definitely a sense of frustration and just anxiety over all about how this all plays out,” said Sara Neagu-Reed, of the California Farm Bureau Federation.

In addition to decreased demand for U.S. farm goods, there are other indirect trade effects related to the uneasy trade relationship that can hurt farmers.

In particular, more frequent and thorough customs inspections of U.S. goods on the Chinese mainland have caused problems. Neagu-Reed said that she and the organization have heard from growers who have shipped their products only to find them delayed by inspection backlogs.

If the products sit there too long, they risk rotting. But she demurred when asked what she was hearing from farmers about the president’s performance on trade issues. Neagu-Reed said she had heard many growers express hope that the administration was pursuing trade policies to expand available export markets; such efforts could at least balance out potentially shrinking sales to China.

“What I can say from the California perspective and our growers is that we’ve already been put in a really tough situation,” she said. “Until we see that actually happen, then our growers won’t really take a stance against or with all the policies the administration is pursuing.”

Tricia Stever Blattler, the executive director of the Tulare County Farm Bureau, said she believed it was too early to tell if farmers in the valley would change their support for the administration’s broader goals.

She acknowledged that some of the administration’s positions don’t align perfectly with the needs or preferences of farmers. But she pointed to widespread support for the work the Environmental Protection Agency and USDA are doing to promote agriculture, which she said had “re-energized” many people.

“We really do have to have trade-offs,” she said. “We recognize we’re not going to win on every issue every time.”