Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig made several stops in the area Friday including as a speaker at the First Bank Hampton Annual Ag Outlook meeting.
Naig tells RadioOnTheGo News his thoughts on the use of tariffs by President Trump.
“In the first term of the president, he used some tariffs, but at the same time set out to negotiate new trade deals with Japan, USMCA, with Canada and Mexico, with Korea. So I think what we need to be doing here is take a breath. Let’s watch what the president’s doing. We’re certainly weighing in and we certainly will make sure that the administration fully understands the impact on agriculture. We don’t want agriculture to bear the brunt of this in a negative way for a long time. There can be some good that comes of this. Then I think folks will hang with the president on this.”
The bird flu continues to be a problem across the country, and Naig expects that to continue.
“High path in Iowa, knock on wood, has been quiet since early January, but if you look to our east in Ohio and look to our south, even just Missouri and down, they are really raging right now with new cases. And so unfortunately it continues to be a threat and we’ve got to be very wise about it and be ready to respond.”
Naig has been the Iowa Ag Secretary since 2019.
