Ty Masterson would rather be MAGA than help Kansans hurt by Trump’s tariffs | Opinion
Donald Trump’s tariffs have been beyond lousy for American agriculture.
How lousy? The president in December was forced to promise a $12 billion bailout for farmers devastated by the effects of his trade wars. So it was probably a good thing Friday — for Trump and for farmers — when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down those tariffs.
Ty Masterson disagrees.
“I will work with President Trump to make sure he has the tools necessary to restore the American economy, defend American workers, strengthen Kansas agriculture, and hold China accountable,” Masterson, the Kansas Senate president and a leading GOP candidate for governor, wrote Sunday on X. “This setback from the Supreme Court only strengthens our resolve to make life more affordable for hardworking American families.”
That’s wrong in a whole bunch of ways — alarmingly so, coming from a politician positioned to be the state’s next chief executive.
Bad for agriculture, consumers
The first and most obvious is that Trump’s tariffs have done zip to “strengthen Kansas agriculture.” The state’s farmers have suffered as countries such as China closed off their markets to soybeans and other products grown in the Sunflower State.
“We have seen the damage, and we’re living with the damage from that move — from those tariffs, the trade war,” Nick Levendofsky, executive director of the Kansas Farmers Union, told the Topeka Capital-Journal last week.
It matters. Agriculture is the state’s leading industry and exports play a big role. The Kansas Department of Agriculture says the state’s farmers exported $4.75 billion in agricultural products to 94 countries in 2024. But that was before Trump went back to the White House.
We don’t have precise numbers for how much export value Kansas farmers lost last year thanks to Trump’s tariffs, though we do know they got hit to the tune of nearly $1 billion during an earlier round of trade wars during the president’s first term in 2018.
That’s a lot of lost money.
But it’s not just farmers who have been affected. American consumers — including you and me and every other Kansan who buys stuff — have paid through the nose.
The average tariff on imports rose from 2.6% to 13% in 2025, economists from the Federal Reserve said this month in a blog post. The people buying those imported goods — Americans, not the foreign businesses shipping them here — paid nearly 90% of that increase.
“In sum, U.S. firms and consumers continue to bear the bulk of the economic burden of the high tariffs imposed in 2025,” the economists wrote.
If your life feels more expensive, Trump’s tariffs are one reason why. So much for making life “more affordable” for hardworking families.
More MAGA than thou?
Which brings us back to Masterson. The Kansas Senate president has positioned himself in the upcoming GOP gubernatorial primary as the “more MAGA than thou” candidate, even enlisting key Trump campaign advisers for his own election push.
And we all know the way to stay on Trump’s good side is to never, ever dissent.
So if Trump is mad about his tariffs being struck down — he really is — then Masterson will dutifully and publicly lament the “setback from the Supreme Court,” even if that supposed “setback” might ultimately make life easier for the farmers and other Kansans.
Which is kind of wild. Sen. Jerry Moran has supported efforts to curb Trump’s tariff power, and Sen. Roger Marshall — perhaps the most MAGA member of the Kansas congressional delegation — timidly offered last summer that tariffs “are starting to hurt people in Kansas.”
Neither man is much inclined to get on Trump’s bad side. But both clearly understand that the president’s trade wars aren’t all that great for their Kansas constituents.
Masterson isn’t even willing to concede that much. Given a choice between Trump’s terrible trade wars and what’s best for Kansans, the man who would be governor is sticking with Trump.
This story was originally published February 25, 2026 at 5:11 AM.
