Kansas free-market Republicans concerned over Trump’s Canada, Mexico, China tariffs | Opinion

You know who really hates Donald Trump’s tariffs? Free-market Republicans in Kansas.

They still exist, funny enough.

On Wednesday, the Kansas Policy Institute — the influential, Koch family-connected conservative think tank — came out strongly against the president’s new tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China, saying they’re a big threat to the state’s farm economy.

“The return of tariffs under the Trump administration spells trouble for Kansas, especially its agricultural sector,” Vance Ginn wrote for the institute.

That only makes sense. What Kansas makes — airplanes, beef, soybeans, corn and more — the world takes: In 2023, the state sold $14 billion worth of goods to countries around the world. Most of that stuff went to (yes) Canada, Mexico, Japan and China.

But the world won’t take quite as much of what we make while the president is waging a trade war against the state’s biggest customers, will it? Canada and China have responded to Trump’s tariffs with tariffs of their own, and Mexico will follow suit soon.

Which will probably leave all those Kansas exporters and their workers out in the cold.

“Tariffs weaken Kansas’, and everyone else’s, economy, leading to higher costs, job losses, and uncertainty,” Ginn wrote.

Understand: KPI isn’t some namby-pamby “woke” outfit. The institute spends most of its energies advocating for property tax cuts, school vouchers and other priorities that put it pretty squarely in the GOP camp.

No RINOs — Republicans In Name Only — here.

Signs of discontent

KPI’s anti-tariff manifesto comes, of course, hot on the heels of Sen. Roger Marshall’s ill-fated town hall in the western Kansas town of Oakley. Marshall and Trump have both suggested the cantankerous event was stacked with out-of-towners and “paid troublemakers,” not “real Kansans” who — naturally — are quite supportive of the president’s agenda.

But there are other signs of discontent in what would normally be Trump country.

The “youth research firm” SocialSphere reported Tuesday that the president’s standing among young voters is already starting to slip in the company’s polling. In January, nearly two-thirds of young men approved of Trump’s handling of the economy, a number that quickly slipped to 48% in February.

And — here is where Kansas would seem to come into play — Trump’s favorability among “young rural voters” slipped by a whopping 17 points during the same time period.

Those are supposed to be Trump’s folks. The kind of folks who live in Oakley, even.

“If life doesn’t become more affordable as Trump promised, and quickly, even his strongest backers may conclude he can’t deliver,” pollster John Della Volpe told Puck, an online news outlet.

Farmers and ranchers ‘are patriots’

Of course, we’ve seen signs of regret among Trump’s voters and allies before. Remember when Charles Koch expressed his regret for a lifetime of funding partisan causes? He said in 2020 he wanted to turn his attention to issues such as poverty, addiction and homelessness.

Well, right now Koch’s Americans for Prosperity is currently funding a $20 million campaign to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

Self-interest, it seems, will always rule the day.

Kansas airplane makers, farmers and ranchers have a little bit of self-interest, too. You wonder how long they’ll defer that self-interest in order to support Trump.

“Kansas farmers and ranchers are patriots,” Marshall wrote Wednesday afternoon on social media. Trump, he said, “knows this and is fighting to put them first.”

Maybe.

The Kansas Policy Institute, it should be noted, isn’t exactly pushing for Trump to reverse course. Instead, Ginn wrote, Sunflower State leaders “must develop pro-growth policies to protect Kansas from another costly trade war” and work to “expand export markets” for products made and grown here.

Go around the problem, in other words.

But there is only so much state officials can do to insulate Kansas from the president’s policies. Trump started the trade war. He is probably the only one who can or will end it. Until then, those patriotic farmers and ranchers will pay the price. How long will they be willing?

This story was originally published March 6, 2025 at 5:05 AM.