(BISMARCK, ND) – New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York suggests that U.S. tariffs on steel imports are likely to cost the American economy jobs, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Coupled with last week’s report of rising steel prices for American businesses, this could spell trouble for American manufacturers. Experts are particularly concerned about the economic impact of tit-for-tat retaliatory actions that would likely cause further economic harm.

Despite President Trump’s claim that “trade wars are good, and easy to win,” economists say ‘not so fast’ – warning of potential consequences as a result of a looming trade war. Kevin Cramer, who previously dismissed concerns over tariffs as “hysteria,” seems more concerned with praising the president than he is with protecting American jobs. Originally opposed to the administration’s tariffs, Cramer is now turning his back on American workers, shrugging off potential job losses as “short-term pain.” Cramer’s silence on this issue is especially dangerous for North Dakota, where over 17,000 workers are employed in industries that rely on steel and aluminum.

Highlights from the article below:

Wall Street Journal: Steel Tariffs Likely to Lea to U.S. Job Losses, Fed Economists Find

• U.S. tariffs on steel imports are likely to cost the American economy jobs, according to new research from Federal Reserve Bank of New York economists.
• The research comes a day after the Federal Reserve said U.S. businesses reported rising steel prices due to the new tariffs.
• Many economists have said the tariffs won’t have much of a positive impact for the U.S., and the Fed post bolsters that view.
• The bigger issue is that domestic manufacturers will face higher costs both from tariff-affected foreign metal and from American producers lifting prices to match the imports.
• On Wednesday, New York Fed leader William Dudley warned that “a tariff war would be a terrible, terrible outcome.” He added: “I would not look at a trade war as something we can win. I don’t really think a trade war is a winnable proposition.”

(BISMARCK, ND) – Last week in a campaign email, Kevin Cramer came out swinging for President Trump’s disastrous tariffs – completely abandoning North Dakota farmers, ranchers, manufacturers and workers who are already suffering the consequences from the impending trade war.

Here’s what he said:

“To date, we haven’t had a President with the fortitude to stand up to these unfair practices and now we do. He needs our support. Senator Heitkamp has been critical of Trump’s position while Rep. Kevin Cramer has supported it.”

 So where does Cramer actually stand? He’s been doing cartwheels on this issue since day one – when he initially deleted a tweet opposing the tariffs. That same day, Cramer compared voting against the president to cheating on a wife.

But now, it looks like Cramer has finally come out full-bore for the president’s trade war – at least to his campaign supporters.

(BISMARCK, ND) – Today, the North Dakota Democratic-NPL is calling for a bipartisan commission to review to state’s budget priorities in response to Governor Doug Burgum’s radical vision aimed at slashing public services presented in his Strategic Budget Outline for the 2019-2021 cycle. To make up for draining North Dakota’s reserve funds of $800 million last cycle, the Governor latest scheme includes a potential 8 to 13 percent reduction in the budgets of state agencies and drastic changes to higher education funding.

“There’s nothing innovative or strategic about an 8 to 13 percent across the board budget cut,” saidHouse Democratic-NPL Leader Corey Mock (D-18). “As much as the Governor touts ‘reinventing government’ in North Dakota, this budget proposal leaves working families underserved and puts the state on shaky financial grounds. Governor Burgum should not only reconsider his call for indiscriminatorybudget cuts, but convene a bipartisan, public-private task force to identify our priorities and build an innovative budget that meets our state’s growing needs.”

In addition to cuts of state services, Burgum proposed a $50 million reduction in higher education funding, axing nearly one-third of the North Dakota University System’s budget over four years.

While the Governor stated these cuts will not affect K-12 education, he failed to address critical shortfalls in the current funding model for schools. For the previous two bienniums, funding per student has remained stagnant leading to a five to six percent gap that Burgum’s current budget outline does not address.

“We need to ask ourselves and our elected officials about the kind of state we want to live in,” said Senate Democratic-NPL Leader Joan Heckaman (D-23). “Our hope is that through a bipartisan commission, both parties can identify key priorities that meet the needs of North Dakota, find opportunities for cooperation, and present a budget that strengthens our fiscal footing while continuing to provide high-quality service for our citizens and a proper education for the next generation.”

 (BISMARCK, ND) – Kevin Cramer just can’t bring himself to stand up for North Dakota farmers and ranchers. Why? Because for Cramer, party loyalty and his political career always come first. And it looks like North Dakota farmers are starting to notice.

This week, the New York Times reported on the deep concerns of North Dakota agricultural producers with the president’s tariffs. And yesterday, Reuters wrote about North Dakota farmers and producers’ growing frustrations with the president’s out-of-touch and reckless trade policies – with one North Dakota farmer saying, “that is not the way to do things.”

Perhaps it’s time for Kevin Cramer to start standing up for North Dakotans instead of just himself? Highlights from the article below:

Reuters: Trump’s looming trade war gives Democrats an opening in farm country

• “We cannot survive a trade war,” Heitkamp said in a recent interview before an event with women business owners in Jamestown, a city of about 16,000 people in east-central North Dakota. “This kind of disruption to a fragile farm economy is very disturbing.”
• Heitkamp, locked in a tight re-election fight with Republican challenger Kevin Cramer, has led Democratic attacks on Trump for ignoring the economic threat to the region’s export-dependent farmers. The trade dispute has set off political alarms across the conservative farm belt, putting Republican candidates on the defensive and complicating the party’s fight to retain control of Congress.
• Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on imported aluminum and steel along with other goods drew threats of retaliation from Beijing on a list of U.S. agricultural products, topped by soybeans. The crop is farm country’s most valuable export to China, worth $12 billion last year.
• Doyle Lentz, 56, who grows wheat, barley, canola and soybeans on his 7,000-acre North Dakota farm, said he was “angry” about Trump’s combative trade stance towards China, one of the U.S. ag sector’s most important customers.
• “I just don’t understand the approach of holding a gun to someone’s head to make a deal, that is not the way to do things,” said Lentz, a former chairman of the National Barley Growers Association and self-described independent voter.

Meanwhile Faux-Deficit Hawk Kevin Cramer gets a big laugh out of adding nearly $2 trillion to the national debt

(BISMARCK, ND) – It’s no secret the country’s debt crisis is growing – and fast. Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that U.S. debt-to-Growth Domestic Product (GDP) ratio is projected to reach nearly 117% by 2023. Former Republican Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned that the “unfunded” nature of the nearly $2 trillion partisan tax bill was cause for concern. Offering a little Econ 101, Greenspan advised Republicans to try “spending cuts first before you try to do tax cuts.”

Just last week, Republican U.S. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee sounded alarms that the bill might be ‘one of the worst votes he’s made.’

Officials at the Federal Reserve and the Congressional Budget Office are skeptical that the GOP tax bill will stimulate substantial economic expansion, with GDP growth projected to shrink from 3.3 percent this year to 1.7 percent in 2020.

Highlights from the article below:

Bloomberg: U.S. Debt Load Seen Worse Than Italy’s by 2023, IMF Predicts

• Mamma Mia! In five years, the U.S. government is forecast to have a bleaker debt profile than Italy, the perennial poor man of the Group of Seven industrial nations.
• The U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is projected widen to 116.9 percent by 2023 while Italy’s is seen narrowing to 116.6 percent, according to the latest data from the International Monetary Fund. The U.S. will also place ahead of both Mozambique and Burundi in terms of the weight of its fiscal burden.
• The numbers put renewed focus on the U.S. deteriorating budget after the enactment in December of $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, and the passage more recently of $300 billion in new spending.
• “The trouble, unfortunately, is it’s unfunded,” [Greenspan] said, adding that Republicans should have done “spending cuts first before you try to do tax cuts.”
• “This president, obviously, is not a president that’s interested in fiscal issues,” Senator Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, said in Washington earlier on Wednesday.

Does Kevin Cramer still think North Dakota farmers are hysterical?

(BISMARCK, ND) – North Dakotans are concerned about President Trump’s tariff and trade policies – but instead of standing up for them, Kevin Cramer condescendingly referred to them as hysterical. During the last few weeks, Cramer has been busy peddling conspiracy theories that their concerns have been cooked up by Democrats instead of working toward real solutions for our agricultural producers. Maybe that’s because Cramer believes opposing President Trump is akin to marital infidelity – but here are North Dakotans speaking out against the president’s tariffs:

“We never want to see a trade war, especially with a valued customer like China.” –Jared Hagert, Acting Director of the United Soybean Board from Emerado, ND

“Agriculture is now a global market, affecting our plans on what and how much we plant in acres each season. Agriculture will be the casualty in a trade war. Farmers are naturally optimistic; the weather will be better tomorrow when it rains and the sun is shining. Farmers think that because we are the world’s largest agricultural exporter that countries will have to come to us. History says otherwise! The tariffs on steel and aluminum will greatly affect Dakota farmers, especially corn and soybean farmers.” –Terry Ulrich, a fourth-generation farmer from Ashley, ND

“As an elevator, I can’t sell (soy)beans anywhere because of uncertainty. Nobody wants to buy them from us because they don’t know what the true price of the market should be.” –Doug Lingen, grain merchandiser for Dakota Plains in Kindred, ND

“It’s already affecting the marketplace. […] Weekly, we’re getting changes in prices going up, up, up. […] For us, it’s one of the raw material costs. […] It’s the eventual consumer of our product — a school, a shopping mall, whatever — that is going to have to pay more, or cancel the project if the cost goes up too much.” –Lee Holschuh, president and CEO of Mid-America Steel in Fargo, ND

“That’s a huge impact for us. That’s real, and our farmers and our members are obviously very, very concerned. […] We need to be cautious about losing markets we can’t get back into for a while. […] Sometimes, the ag sector is the first to be impacted and the slowest to respond after the fact.” –Pete Hanebutt, director of public policy with the North Dakota Farm Bureau

“If the U.S. starts raising tariffs on a significant number of goods, then we can expect costs in the U.S. are going to tend to increase and we’ll get not only less imports, but we’ll also tend to get less exports. […] In North Dakota, in particular, we can expect there to be a generally negative impact for tariffs. […] We play a dangerous game if we begin to increase tariffs. […] There’s a very good chance other countries will begin to increase tariffs.” –James Caton, assistant professor of economics in the Department of Agribusiness at North Dakota State University