Wisconsin GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Tiffany on US Trade Policy

From the official website, the statement on trade policy: “[…] “ On related topics: Lower Costs for Every Wisconsinite Alongside President Trump, Tom delivered the largest tax cut in history for working families, seniors, and small businesses. He ended taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security. He expanded affordable childcare, opened more pathways to trade schools, and created real opportunities for workers to get ahead. But under Democrat leadership in Madison, Wisconsin is slipping down the woke and broke path of Illinois and Minnesota. Families are paying more, energy costs are now the second highest in the Midwest, and Wisconsin is among the worst states to start a business. This is why leadership matters more than ever. Tom has a proven record of standing up for Wisconsinites, and as governor, he will keep delivering results. He will freeze property taxes, repeal Governor Evers’ massive 400-year tax increase, and drive down energy costs by unleashing reliable baseload power. He will also cut burdensome regulations to make housing, childcare, and healthcare more affordable. and Protect What Makes Wisconsin Great … Protect Farmers: Tom has delivered for Wisconsin’s farmers, supporting dairy producers, ginseng growers, and mink farmers through key farm support programs in Congress. He also fought to ban the death tax and protect Wisconsin farmland from being destroyed by wind and solar projects. As governor, Tom will make sure not a single acre of our farmland falls into the hands of Communist China. He will also ensure the next generation of Wisconsin’s farmers has the tools and resources they need to keep putting food on our tables. … Regarding costs, the US government reports the following data: Figure 1: PPI nitrogenous fertilizer, n.s.a. (blue), price diesel, n.s.a. (red), both in logs 2025M01=0. August diesel prices data through 8/17. Source: BLS, EIA via FRED, author’s calculations. Figure 2: CPI – Midwest, n.s.a. (blue), in logs 2025M01-0. Source: BLS, and author’s calculations. In other words, farm input costs and CPI have risen faster than preTrump. Midwest CPI has risen a cumulative 0.3 ppts higher than the national. Some local news analysis, here. Addendum: Here’s PPI for farm machinery. And here’s the CME/Purdue U. agbarometer: Something on the order of 5 million people have lost food assistance under the Big Bloated Budget Bill. Mostly, food assistance beneficiaries are too young to vote, and their parents often don’t vote, either. Politically, beating up on the poor often has lle risk. Wisconsin farmers and factory workers, on the other hand, do vote. As do Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Maine farmers and factory workers. Like Wisconsin, the biggest export market for each of the is Canada. Unlike Wisconsin, these states are all holding Senate elections this year, and four of them are (were?) too close to call. That’s nearly all the competitive Senate races this year, enough to swing Senate control to Democrats. All the felon-in-chief had to do was wait until the second week in November to pick a fight with Canada. I can’t remember a dumber political decision than this one. Wait…maybe the Iran war. How did this guy get elected twice? Meanwhile, Moday is apparently the day when Iran is really, really gonna get it, by gum! Ooooo, they’re in for it now: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/6045941-barrasso-iran-economic-d-day/ However, since every direct economic sanction has already been imposed on Iran by the U.S., the New! Improved! Evonomic D-Day! amounts to the U.S. putting greater pressure on other countries and crypto exchanges doing business with Iran. I’m not heartbroken about the crypto exchange thing, since they mostly exist to skirt the law. If they knuckle under, their money-laundering business model comes into question, and that’s good. Pressure on trading partners mostly means China, Turkey, the UAE, India and Pakistan. Good luck with China. The UAE is probably already doing little business with Iran, what with Iran’s ports being blocked. India and Pakistan buy oil, and that’s now very much diminished, but is stoll going on. With oil in critically short supply, telling Indian and Pakistan to stop getting it anywhere they can will be a tough sell. So how much good is this big new tool to bring Iran to its knees really going to do? Sean Duffy claims the problem is that Iran doesn’t understand yet it has lost the war. Secretary Duffy is a competitive lumberjack, so he must know stuff, but it seems like we’re the ones grasping at straws here.