Raleigh – This week, Senator Tillis doubled down on defending the disastrous ongoing trade war, even as North Carolina farmers warned that they will “pay the price” and are taking “the hit” from the Tillis-backed tariffs. In a heated discussion with AG Secretary Sonny Perdue ahead of National Farmer Day, farmers told Tillis and Perdue that “agriculture is paying the brunt in this” and that the trade war is causing a “considerable higher hit” for North Carolina farmers.

Farmers also criticized the administration’s relief aid – which now has cost more than double the 2009 auto bailout and which many NC famers have not received “one penny” of – saying, “Those relief programs have not done for agriculture what was needed.” Despite the farmers’ warning, Secretary Perdue offered tone deaf comments that “the plight of farmers has been overstated” and that small farmers need to decide whether “they need to grow or whether they need to do other things.”

Tillis has long tried to minimize the damage this is causing for his constituents. He has said in the past that farmers will feel “some pain” and admitted that tariffs are a “tax” on families. Farmers, meanwhile, have pleaded with him, saying, “We are desperate for something to happen” and “it’s going to be very hard to make ends meet” and worrying that families will have to “sell some of our land.”

“This disastrous trade war backed by Senator Tillis is threatening the livelihood of small North Carolina famers and putting Tillis on defense over his spineless decision to back anything the president does, no matter how much it hurts North Carolina,” NCDP spokesman Robert Howard said. “North Carolina famers and the rural economies that depend on them deserve an independent senator who’s not afraid to speak out against policies that put our farmers squarely in the crosshairs.”

Read more about how the trade war Tillis has been left defending is hurting NC farmers:

• WFAE: NC Farmers Tell Tillis, Agriculture Secretary That Trade War Is Costing Them

• Spectrum News: Tillis Defends Tariffs as Farmers Pay the Price

• WLOS: “As farmers take the hit for president trump’s tariff policies, North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis is defending those policies.”

• News & Observer: Chinese tariffs and bad weather continue to hammer North Carolina’s tobacco farmers

• WUNC: First Storms, Now Tariffs Hit Embattled Farmers

• Business NC: Tariffs hit tobacco growers hard

• News & Observer: How much did Trump administration give NC farmers impacted by tariffs?

• Bloomberg: Majority of Trump’s Trade Aid Went to Biggest Farms, Study Finds