| <No.742> |
| Tariffs Take Toll on Farm Equipment Manufacturers
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Their iconic blue-colored equipment is recognizable
on many farms
across the country.
"We're known
for our planters and grain cars."
Products easily spotted
in large displays
in front of Kinze's manufacturing hub
along Interstate 80
in Williamsburg, Iowa,
where the company employs over 500 people,
most of them working with one key component.
"Steels are obviously the lifeblood of Kinze.
We're a factory
that's essentially a weld house.
We cut, burn, shape, form, paint steel."
Steel which now costs more -
result of a 25 percent tariff
on the material
imported from most countries.
"When there is a tariff on steel,
it cuts right to the core of our fundamental product construction."
President Donald Trump imposed the tariffs
with the goal of boosting U.S. steel production
and related employment.
While there has been a modest benefit
to the domestic steel industry,
Dix says
increased costs are negatively impacting companies
like Kinze.
"And those tariffs take their effect
on our cost structure,
on our profitability for the family,
through our employees,
and now to our dealers
and on to our final customers."
Those customers are mostly U.S. farmers
who use Kinze's products
to plant soybean seeds.
Soybean exports are now subject
to retaliatory tariffs,
which have sunk prices
and contributed to another year of overall declining income
for U.S. farmers.
That means
many are less likely to purchase the products
Kinze makes.
"The market is substantially down.
We get a one-two punch.
We pay more for the product
that comes into us
and therefore on to the customer,
and then we have a reciprocal situation
where we can't export
what was advantageous to us."
Dix says
one year under tariffs has already taken a toll
on Kinze's operations.
Kane Farabaugh, VOA News, Williamsburg, Iowa
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