MOORHEAD — In the business of beer, tariffs proposed, then paused, by President Donald Trump brew issues for the industry, according to one Moorhead business owner.
Sean Syverson, a co-owner of Swing Barrel Brewing Company, spoke about how the uncertainty around tariffs on imported goods is affecting his business during a press conference with U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., on Friday morning, April 11.
“It’s the uncertainty, it’s the instability that we face, not knowing what our costs are going to be, when they’re going to rise, how they’re going to rise, how it’s going to upset the supply chain,” Syverson said. “There are many, numerous, variables that we just don’t know, and that makes it really hard for a business of our size because we do not have a surplus of money to gamble with.”
Tariffs can affect items like beer cans, fruits imported from Mexico and brewing yeast from Canada, Syverson said.
The press conference at Swing Barrel came after an announcement Wednesday that Trump was pausing most tariffs for 90 days.
Last week, he announced varying steep tariffs on many countries, causing the stock market to plunge. The White House said the "reciprocal" tariffs are necessary to ensure fair trade, protect American workers and reduce the trade deficit between the U.S. and its trading partners.
After the pause, a 10% blanket tariff on most U.S. imports remains. Tariffs of 25% on many imports from Mexico and Canada are still in place. And tariffs on China have been hiked to effectively 145%, Reuters reports.
While Klobuchar said she has been supportive of targeted tariffs, the across-the-board tariffs proposed by the Trump administration have been a “complete jolt to our economy,” she said. Additionally, Canada is the No. 1 trading partner to Minnesota.
“So you can imagine that this major trade war going on with Canada is going to have an inordinate effect on the northern states that tend to do more business with Canada,” Klobuchar said.
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Klobuchar talked about two bills she has worked on to push back against tariffs. The first, with Sens. Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Mark Warner, D-Va., seeks to cancel the national emergency the tariffs on Canada are dependent on. It passed through the Senate 51-48 with the support of four Republican senators: Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine; Rand Paul, R-Ky.; Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
A second bill is backed by eight Democrats and eight Republicans, Klobuchar said, and would require tariff changes made by the president to come before Congress for approval.
Mike Skaug, a soybean producer from Beltrami in Polk County, Minn., and past president of the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association, talked about the ongoing effects of tariffs on his industry. After the United States imposed tariffs on China in 2018, China retaliated with tariffs on U.S. soybean exports.
In the time since, China has started sourcing more soybeans from Brazil. While the U.S. and Brazil produced similar amounts of soybeans six years ago, Brazil produces 40% more soybeans than the United States today, Skaug said.
Additionally, the United States produces more than 30% more in agricultural products than it uses, Skaug said. Leaders like Klobuchar need to understand the complicated situation around tariffs, he said.
“We hope that something can develop sooner, because we just need more stable certainty on regulations so we can deal with our business in a responsible way,” Skaug said.
Klobuchar said that the more businesses and farmers stand up to talk about tariffs, the more Republicans are standing up.
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“That could then lead to a coalition, that I think is becoming more and more helpful to say this is really hurting our economy,” Klobuchar said.
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