Tester concerned about impacts of continuing trade war

Although he said some improvements have happened for trade between the United States, Canada and Mexico, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said he is still concerned with with growing trade war between the United States and China and the country's other trade partners.

"It's taking a financial toll on Montana," Tester said.

During a press conference call Tuesday from Washington, Tester said the trade war the country is facing is hurting many agricultural producers in rural America and has no end goal in sight. He added that, this year, he has also been working on several bills which should help rural areas in the country such as broadband, health care and education.

Montana raises the best products in the world, he said, and needs access to overseas markets to get the best return on its products, but the tariffs have caused commodity prices to fall across the board. The uncertainty the trade war has created is continuing to fill the agricultural market with uncertainty and is hurting family farms and ranches.

"If these tariffs cause us to currently lose access to our international markets, that could be a nail in the coffin for family farm agriculture and for rural communities with more consolidation and less food security," he said. "We have to hold China accountable, but not at the Montana ag producer's expense."

China has been stealing technology from the United States and other countries it has been doing business with, Tester said. Rather than creating a trade war, the United States should have used the financial industry to confront this issue.

"Use the financial industry, that's how you get people's attention and use it in concert with our allies," he said. "It's no secret that China plays the long game. I don't doubt that (the tariffs) are having some negative impacts on China, but the truth is, I don't think that the administration has a plan on how to get us to a point where this tariffs situation is put to an end."

It is clear there is no long-term plan to reduce tariffs, and the president's advisors admit American farmers are paying for it, Tester said.

"The president must stop using farmers and ranchers as pawns in his trade war," he said. "We cannot afford to begin another growing season with this cloud of uncertainty."

The president announced last Friday the end of the tariffs on steel and aluminum coming in from Canada and Mexico, Tester said, and in the Senate Agricultural Committee meeting Tuesday United States Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said that a bilateral beef export agreement with Japan has been made.

Tester added that he doesn't know the particulars of the agreement or if the deal evens the playing field with competing countries.

"But if it does, that's a great step in the right direction," he said.

But the continuing trade war with China and the United States not being involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement is still having a visible negative impact, he said.

A producer himself, Tester said that when he took over his family farm west of Big Sandy in 1978, hard red winter wheat was $3.50 a bushel at the time. A couple weeks ago hard red winter wheat was selling for $4.14 a bushel.

"That doesn't cut it," he said.

Hard red winter wheat has increased 65 cents in the past 41 years while everything else, such as trucks, tractors and fertilizer has gone up in price and is putting additional pressure on farm programs to make up the difference, he said.

"You can't work in an environment where you're isolationist," Tester said, adding that if he thought that there was and end in sight it would be different.

He said he sees it getting worse and not better. If trade agreements were made in the next couple of months, producers won't feel an immediate impact.

Trump has already started discussing a $15 billion bailout for producers, he said. But the $15 billion is not equivalent to market value and can't help all the producers and industries affected by the trade war. But as a producer, Tester added that he appreciates the effort.

"The best option here isn't a bailout," he said. "The best option is to get the tariff thing behind us and open up the market so we can do trade and export products."

Broadband

As a part of the Senate Commerce Committee, Tester said, he has worked to get high speed internet access in rural communities to expand. The Federal Communications Commission and the United States Department of Agriculture are charged with allocating billions of dollars based on coverage maps to target and expand broadband services.

"These maps are not accurate enough to pinpoint gaps in coverage in rural areas in America," he said.

Last week he introduced a bipartisan bill last week to create new and improved mapping which accurately reflects what areas are covered, he added.

"So resources can get to where they are most needed, when it comes to laying out high speed internet," Tester said.

Health care

Tester said he has also introduced a bill to help recruit and retain medical professionals in rural communities, which is one of the biggest challenges facing health care in Montana.

The Restoring Rural Residency Act will bring more doctors to rural communities by making it easier for medical residents to train at critical access hospitals in rural areas, he said. The bill would finally allow Medicare to financially support residency rotations at critical access hospitals, increasing the number of doctors training in rural settings and encouraging more medical professionals to practice in rural communities.

He added that he has introduced the legislation every Congress since he was elected but also pushed centers of Medicaid and Medicare to adopt policy on their own. Tester said that recently the agencies agreed and recommended a new policy based on the rural residency act.

"The proposed change is a huge step toward bringing more doctors to rural hospitals across Montana," he said.

Teachers

Rural America is also facing a similar problem with obtaining and retaining teachers, Tester said. At one point in his life he was a music teacher and understands that it is challenging for students coming out of college with debt to want to work in the education field with a low starting salary.

"I don't want to say it's all money, it's not all money, but you still got to live," he said.

Some families on teachers' wages are eligible for food stamps, he said, adding that could be discouraging for many people. Tester said that one of his daughters has been an elementary school teacher for almost 20 years, while his other daughter has been a nurse for around the same amount of time and the wage difference is obvious.

He said that he has introduced a bill called the Rural Education Act which will provide incentives for new teachers to come into rural areas by giving loan forgiveness.

"It's as simple as that, I think we need to value public education more," Tester said. "I think it's very very important for a democracy, it's important for our leadership in government and in the private sector, it's important for creating the next generation of entrepreneurs, it's the great equalizers."

Education is not for one specific group, it's for everybody and the country needs to invest in it, he said.