Daren Coppock: Trump Trade Tariffs and Tax Cuts Could Have ‘Devastating’ Impact on Agriculture, ARA in 2025
December 11, 2024 At the 2024 Agricultural Retailers Association (ARA) Annual Meeting and Conference in early December, President/CEO Daren Coppock had a simple message for attendees looking ahead to the new year: Pay attention and engage.
As the second Donald Trump presidency comes into power in Washington, DC, this coming January, Coppock told ARA members that there are two areas to keep a close eye on. The first involves taxes.
During the first Trump administration, the President and Congress passed a series of tax cuts to help U.S. businesses. Current plans are for these policies to extend beyond their expiration in a few months.
Daren Coppock, ARA
However, these tax cuts will mean less income coming into the federal government. Hence, some lawmakers are looking for ways to boost revenue shortfalls in different ways. According to Coppock, one of the proposals being suggested is to take non-profit trade associations such as ARA.
“There’s also some talk in Washington about to pay for these – how do you make up the money to pay for these tax cuts?” said Coppock. “And one of the provisions they are talking about would make trade associations revenue – dues, income, sponsorships, show revenue – taxable. That would be devastating to this organization. So, there are a bunch of non-profit organizations like us that are trying to stop this to make sure it doesn’t get out of whatever committee it is in right now.”
The other area that concerns agricultural involves President-Elect Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on key U.S. trading partners. At the moment, our country’s three largest trading partners – China, Canada, and Mexico – are being mentioned as targets of such measures.
Loading ...“Trade makes everybody better,” said Coppock. “In our history, whenever we have imposed a tariff on goods coming into our country, that country inevitably retaliates against agriculture. The last time we had a trade war, the U.S. lost its No. 1 export status for soybeans to Brazil.”
Coppock reminded ARA members that they need to engage with representatives of the incoming administration to make certain everyone understands how important these trading partners are to the fortunes of U.S. ag producers.
“These relationships take decades to build and take minutes to destroy,” he said. “So, I am really concerned about what this trade tariff policy might do. We have to be really active so that the incoming administration understands what the likely impact of these policies will be.”
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