The U.S. House recently voted to repeal President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada. It’s one of the largest agricultural trade partners with the U.S. and a major export market for tractors and farm equipment made in Iowa.
The vote came a year after Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to enact 25% tariffs on most goods imported from Canada. He cited the flow of fentanyl in his justification. However, data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection shows less than 1% of the illicit drug in the U.S. came across the northern border in 2024.
Since then, Trump has paused, increased, exempted and threatened more tariffs as Canada has rolled out its own retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods.
Ahead of the House vote on Feb. 11, Trump threated lawmakers who were planning to vote against the tariffs in a post on Truth Social.
“Any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
Six Republicans voted with all but one Democrat to narrowly pass the resolution 219-211. Iowa’s four U.S. representatives stuck with the GOP majority.
In a statement shared with IPR News, Iowa's 1st District Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks called the vote a gimmick pushed by Democrats.
“I remain ready to work with anyone on either side of the aisle to deliver lasting trade wins for Iowa. But I won’t play along with the Democrats political stunts, which seek to undermine our negotiating strength as a nation and our president,” Miller-Meeks said.
Iowa's 2nd District Rep. Ashley Hinson said she voted against the resolution because she believes Trump will “level the playing field” for trade.
“While reversing decades of failed 'America Last' policies won’t happen overnight. We must secure strong, enforceable trade agreements that open markets for our farmers ASAP. We have to deliver lasting stability for our producers and protect families here at home,” Hinson said.
Iowa's 3rd District Rep. Zach Nunn said the tariffs are intended to repair “one-sided trade policies.”
“I will continue standing with Iowa’s dairy farmers who have called on Canada to end its decades-long, 200% tariff on Iowa milk,” Nunn stated. “Democrats stood by as the U.S. agriculture trade surplus turned into a $50 million trade deficit under President Biden, with no new trade deals to open markets for our producers, leaving Iowa farmers to pay the price.”
Under trade agreements stretching from the Reagan administration to Trump’s first term, Canada has set quotas for different U.S. dairy products. The tariffs only go into effect if imports go over predetermined thresholds.
The U.S. dairy industry and trade officials have claimed Canadian regulations are unfair. But according to the International Dairy Foods Association, the U.S. “has never gotten close to exceeding” quotas enacted in 2020 by the United State-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Iowa's 4th District Rep. Randy Feenstra did not respond to IPR’s request for comment about the House vote.
The resolution now goes to the Senate, which passed similar measures last April and October. Trump is expected to use his veto powers if it passes the second chamber, which would then require a two-thirds vote by the House and Senate to push the measure through.
A step in the right direction
Pam Johnson, a retired Iowa farmer, described her reaction to the House vote as “jubilation” and said it’s “a door opening” to other trade-related resolutions.
Johnson previously held numerous leadership positions in the agricultural industry, including as president of the National Corn Growers Association and MAIZALL, a coalition of corn farmer associations from Argentina, Brazil and the U.S. Part of her work in these roles focused on reducing trade barriers.
“I want the products that are made not only in Iowa but ... in America to go from places where we have surpluses, like in grain, to places all over the world that need it,” Johnson said.
She joined other former heads of national agriculture associations and senior U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials in writing a letter earlier this month to the House and Senate agricultural committees.
The bipartisan coalition expressed “significant concerns about the state of America's farm economy and the harmful and compounding effect that administration policies are having on our farmers and on the long-term competitiveness of U.S. agriculture.”
They pointed to decreasing profits, a growing trade deficit and farmer bankruptcies, which nearly doubled between 2024 and 2025.
According to Purdue University’s latest Ag Economy Barometer, half of the farmers surveyed said their farm operations were worse off than a year ago. Just over half also said they plan to use one-time payments through the Farmer Bridge Assistance Program to pay down debt.
Johnson said many of the people who signed the letter saw the widespread impacts of the 1980s Farm Crisis.
“When you see the writing on the wall for the next one, are you going to just let it roll in and roll over you, or are you going to try and do something about it?” Johnson said.
The coalition’s letter listed nine actions for Congress, which Johnson said could help the U.S. avoid a farm crisis. This included exempting all farm inputs from tariffs and a repeal of tariffs disrupting agricultural export markets.
“We all need to remember it's the constitutional duty of Congress to levy tariffs,” Johnson said.
Bart Ruth, a corn and soybean farmer in eastern Nebraska and former president of the American Soybean Association, also signed the letter. Part of his role with the association entailed traveling around the world to promote U.S. soybeans and open new markets.
“Trade is not something that happens overnight. You have to spend years building relationships and making contacts and developing trust with trading partners,” Ruth said.
Ruth said it’s been difficult to see those efforts disrupted during Trump’s first and second term through trade wars and the administration's decision to pull out of a 12-nation trade deal in 2017.
According to the letter, “U.S. whole soybean exports have fallen from 47% of world market share in 2018 to just 24.4% today – a 50% reduction – while Brazil has gained more than 20% market share during the same period.”
Tariffs on imports from Canada, including steel for American manufacturing and inputs left out of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, also affect the U.S. farm economy, Ruth said.
“When you disrupt the natural flow of goods through tariffs, it’s hurtful,” Ruth said. “We all recognize how much the cost of our inputs and our cost of production have increased over the last decade or more, but more so in the recent years, with the application of tariffs.”
Ruth views the recent House vote as symbolic but is hopeful there could be more pushback from Republican members of Congress on tariffs after the primaries.
