WaPo: “The 57-year-old has been farming all his life. Every year, he mulls changes recommended by the tobacco companies, considers competition from Brazilian soybean farmers and ponders how much labor he needs to hire to eke out enough profit to keep everything going.
But this year, his biggest numbers challengehas been the tariff policies of President Donald Trump.
“It’s always been a guessing game here on the farm, but I think it’s more of a guess now than it’s ever been in my lifetime,” Ashe said on Wednesday, as he alternated between trimming tobacco seedlings in his greenhouse and checking his phone for tariff updates. The plants will go in the ground this month, but his anxieties center on his soon-to-be-sown crop of soybeans. Most years, a large portion of his harvest would be exported to China, which is the top target in an escalating trade war started by the president….
“This is not a thing where we can wait three months,” Ashe said. “This is a critical time. It’s going to be critical until harvest. It’s amazing to me how some farmers are still proud of him for doing this.””