2016 ELECTION/ELECTION/GOP/TARIFFS/TRADE WAR/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Warren Bachman, a 72-year-old Iowa soybean farmer, is one of many who turned Clarke County into Donald Trump country, as the Republican president took 61 percent of the votes in 2016 in a county that went for Democrat Barack Obama four years earlier. But Bachman’s loyalty to Trump is wavering under the weight of a trade war that has disproportionately hurt farmers due to big tariffs on agricultural exports. Other farmers, meanwhile, are upset that the White House has not yet followed through on a promise to reform rules that would boost demand for corn-based ethanol, one of the state’s biggest businesses…November’s congressional elections represent the first nationwide response to Trump’s aggressive trade policies, particularly in the Farm Belt, which runs roughly from Indiana to Kansas and the Dakotas, which favored Trump heavily two years ago.”
–Jarrett Renshaw, “Pressure mounts on Trump to deliver for Iowa ahead of elections,” Reuters, August 16, 2018 10:06 pm