However, when the Republican governor tried to deliver a personal message from the President, whom he had spoken to Wednesday night, the audience only laughed.
The Post interpreted the “skeptical chuckling” as reflecting the growing tensions between the White House and foreign leaders—a standoff that is also a growing concern for U.S. governors. And, it says, that’s especially true in Kentucky, where there are signs the trade dispute is rattling the state’s soybean and bourbon industries.
Gov. Bevin, who narrowly won his Republican gubernatorial primary recently, is a staunch defender of free-market conservatism, but likely needs Trump administration help salvage his political career--which includes the distinction of being one of the nation’s most unpopular governors, the Post said. He will face off against Democrat Andy Beshear, the son of popular former governor Steve Beshear.
Bevin is staunchly pro-trade but his alignment with the administration seems essential to his political career and “he’s trying to find a way to accommodate both,” the Post said.
The National Governors Association conference was in part an effort to showcase how governors hope to become a firewall for limiting economic fallout should the trade disputes drag on, the Post said. Representatives from 20 states and territories and four Chinese provinces attended.
During a meeting with reporters, Bevin attempted to play down the effects that administration trade policies will have on the state. Although he called tariffs “a tax” on consumers that could hinder sales, he argues that the President views them as a short-term tactic. “But this will end — it won’t last,” he said.
Bevin isn’t the only Republican governor navigating how to speak out against tariffs while not criticizing Trump for using them, the Post said.
After Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee spoke at Wednesday’s conference, extolling the state’s low tax rates and the Nashville music scene, he said he trusts that the ongoing trade negotiations “will be beneficial” for the United States.
However, Middle Tennessee State University published a report last week that estimated the state lost $500 million in exports during the last quarter of 2018 because of the tariffs, including a $62 million decline in whiskey exports.
Earlier this month, at a conference sponsored by Yahoo Finance, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts said it was time for Trump to “wrap up” his trade dispute with China and argued that Nebraska farmers lost more than $1 billion in revenue last year because of the tariffs.
Former Missouri governor Bob Holden, a Democrat who chairs the U.S. Heartland China Association, said Republican governors are “trying to identify and work with China to protect their state’s self-interest” while “still not wanting to cross waves” with the White House.
Republican-aligned business groups are also pressing GOP governors to become more outspoken critics of Trump’s trade policies. Officials with Americans for Prosperity, the main political arm of billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, have been asking governors to be “more public and vocal” about the impacts that tariffs are having on their states, according to Brent Gardner, the chief of government affairs for the group.
Last year, after the trade war erupted, Chinese investment in the United States plunged 83%, while increasing 80% in Canada. However, China remains the third-largest export market for U.S. goods and services and it will be responsible for one-third of all global trade over the next decade, said Craig Allen, president of the US-China Business Council.
Under Bevin’s leadership, Kentucky has been at the forefront of spurring economic development from China, which is one of the largest buyers of the state’s exports.
As he seeks reelection, Bevin can point to other economic successes, including a state unemployment rate that has been hovering at about 4 percent, the lowest in nearly two decades. However, the governor’s approval ratings have fallen amid a well-publicized battle with teachers and government workers over the state’s chronically underfunded pension program.
At the same time, D. Stephen Voss, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky, said most Kentucky voters still haven’t “really felt the effect of the trade battles in their day-to-day lives,” so the trade issue may not have a major impact in November.
“Even to the extent we are feeling effects, it’s hard to trace them back to the source,” Voss said. “Some prices go up here, but down over there, so you are never going to get that smoking gun that says, ‘The tariff caused this.’”
It is clear that producers are watching the trade disputes closely and know that the stakes are high. At the same time, the administration is working to reduce any negative political fallout, also an effort producers should watch closely as it is implemented Washington Insider believes.