Welcome to The Exchange on SPM. I’m MH. This week, we presented a live edition of The Exchange at the Sioux City Public Library. The topic was the effect of tariffs on agricultural and industrial products. Those tariffs were issued in retaliation for tariffs President Donald Trump announced a little over a year ago. Those tariffs focused on China but affected other countries like Canada as well. We took questions from our listeners via email and Facebook, and we also took questions and comments from a live audience. It was a community-wide conversation.
My guests were:
Dave Bernstein, Sioux City, Co-Owner of State Steel, Sioux City
Dr. Sam Funk, Head of Analytics and Research at the Iowa Farm Bureau
Mary Zink, Assistant Professor of Bus Admin Morningside College
Darren Tooley, Vice President of Ag Lending, Security National Bank, Sioux City
Jim Miller, Farmer and former head of the Nebraska Soybean Association
My first question for the panel was whether the tariffs imposed by President Trump to deal with what many says is an imbalance in the trade market was needed and whether tariffs were a good way to deal with that problem. First, we hear from Darren Tooley, from Security National Bank.