“Don’t Hate All of Us”: An American Farmer Speaks Out
Farmers are probably the best equipped of us all to weather storms. Doug Sombke, a fourth-generation farmer and rancher from Groton, South Dakota, thinks Hurricane Donald might be the most devastating one he’s seen yet. Within weeks of taking office, Trump mounted a topsy-turvy global trade war, which has, so far, mostly served to devastate the working-class Americans he swore to enrich. Worst of all, it’s made an enemy of Canadians, America’s favourite agricultural business partners—and, as Sombke calls us, its “country cousins.”
For the 18,000 members of the South Dakota Farmers Union, of which Sombke is president, the ripple effects of the tariffs have been bleak: skyrocketing prices for fertilizer and machinery (made of Canadian potash and steel, respectively), sad soybean sales and a ton of hate mail sent from north of the border. Sombke recently spoke with Maclean’s about surviving America’s trade-war season, gracefully taking licks from his farmer friends up north and why messing with South Dakota’s flow of Canadian imports might be enough to sour even the reddest of his state’s Republicans on Trump for good.
Your family has farmed in South Dakota for four generations. What would you say is your specialty?
Depending on the rotation, corn and soybeans swap between first and second place as the state’s main exports every year. My family is more concentrated on livestock than cultivating our land, so I’d say our specialty is cattle—Black Angus, which are much more friendly than other breeds when they’re calving. We also have a hunting lodge on the farm and two of my sons train hunting dogs. My other son has a soil-sampling business. And one of my daughters-in-law is a vet, so we use her for all the animals. We’ve covered all the bases to help ourselves.
We produce a lot of our own corn and beef up here, which are big South Dakotan exports. Prior to the trade war, what were Canadians buying from you?
It’s honestly more about what we were buying from you: a lot of Canadian piglets to put in our finishing plants. Seed and barley come down over the border for malting. American and Canadian cattle breeders also go back and forth with “genetics.”
A little cross-border cross-breeding.
Yeah. It’s been a good relationship.
Did you travel to Canada much in the ‘before times?’
Yes, and I’d never experienced anything difficult or unfriendly. I’ve been fishing up there several times—once to Eagle Lake in Ontario. It was awesome. I’ve taken my sons up there a few times, too, and they fell in love with it. They went back to Alberta to hunt black bears. We also get a lot of Canadians that come down to South Dakota for tourism, mostly in the Black Hills, where Mount Rushmore is. That’s probably not going to be the case for a while. I spoke with someone in the state tourism department and he said the feeling from Canadians is: you can keep your country. We’ll tour our own.
The whole notion of having this trade war against Canada because of fentanyl…Trump’s using that just so he can use the Act of War clause to push tariffs through without Congress. I do believe that fentanyl is a bad drug. There’s no doubt about that. But there are ways to civilly handle it rather than destroying the global economy.
It’s been just over 100 days since Trump was elected, and one of the first industries to feel the pain from this tariff ‘situation’ was agriculture. What have those losses looked like in South Dakota so far?
The most noticeable thing is the higher cost of inputs, especially Canadian fertilizer. That’s really gone up, regardless of the brand. We’re now paying one- to two-thirds more for it than we were last fall. It used to be just under $400 a ton, and now it’s roughly $600 to $650. The price of soybeans right now is crap—we’re underwater by $2 a bushel right now. Canadian dairy and hog farmers buy a lot of those. There’s also the equipment imports, for our tractors and combines and such. We get a lot of steel parts, like ball bearings, from you, especially ones used by the American agricultural manufacturer Case IH. Those come stamped “made in Canada.”
Your state went bright red last November, partly because Trump promised to make life easier for the working class. In light of this bust-up with Canada, have any farmers in your union expressed voters’ regret?
Not every farmer in South Dakota supports this administration, but a lot of them still do—mostly the dyed-in-the-wool Republicans. The ones who are having regrets are those who were more worried about the day-to-day than party politics; they felt that Trump was better for farmers than Harris. Now, they see we got sold a bill of goods. They’re seeing what’s happened to their (or their partners’) 401ks. They were told grocery prices were going to come down. Trump keeps leading them on, saying, “There’s gonna be some pain.” I don’t think anybody was ready for this much pain, this soon.
Have any union farmers been forced to close up shop?
They’re not shutting down yet, but if this all goes on for too long, they sure as heck will. From what we’re all seeing, it’s just Trump’s billionaire friends who are getting rich right now. It sure as hell isn’t any other Americans, or Canadians for that matter. I don’t like it when people lie to me, and I think everybody in South Dakota is that way—especially farmers. They’re good neighbours, but you better be straight with them. Trump even got corrected by your prime minister for some of the lies he was telling when he was down here a couple of days ago. I thought that was kind of cool.
That played well here, too. Have you noticed any animosity between Canadian and American farmers as a result of all this?
I have some Canadian friends who are grain and livestock farmers. They’ve made fun of me for the way things are in this country—and they should. We’ve got every right to be laughed at right now, for the stupid way we’re treating our neighbours. I’ve done some interviews for Canadian news, and the emails I’ve received? I’ve never seen so much negativity towards family farmers. It’s just not normal.
They’re blaming the farmers?
Yeah, like, “You had what you got coming. You guys did this.” That’s the general consensus. Like I said, not every farmer here voted for him. I’ll just come out and say it: I didn’t!
Aside from the tariffs, Donald Trump has stated (and restated) his goal to make Canada the 51st state. One of the fastest and easiest ways for Canadians to punch back was to boycott American food—your lettuce, your orange juice and your junk food, which is a shame, because you guys do snacks extremely well. Do you get where our boycotters are coming from, or do you wish they’d just buy your Twinkies regardless?
I’d do the same thing, if that were me. Canadians are our closest allies and friends. Especially for those of us in the Dakotas, Montana, Minnesota and Wisconsin, you guys are like our country cousins. If we’re doing something that’s not working for you, we should know about it. I look at any response you guys have as constructive criticism. It’s like when a relative knows you shouldn’t marry that girl or guy, so they slap you around a little bit to finally make you wake up—so you realize that’s not the smartest thing to do.
Farming involves a lot of rolling with external factors, whether that’s weather or a rando trade war. Are any of your union members starting to explore new products or new ways of making money? Any genius schemes to court back Canadian customers?
Some farms in South Dakota have expanded into… I guess you’d call it tourism. We have a lodge that people visit for pheasant hunting. We get a little more value out of our land that way. People are talking about what else they can plant if their soybeans don’t make money, and one thing that’s starting to catch a little bit of energy is hemp. We just have to get better processing facilities here to make that more desirable for farmers to get into it. I don’t know how much they grow up there in Canada, but I know there’s some.
Canadians are generally pretty friendly to members of the cannabis family. Do you think there’s any way for our farmers to mend fences—or at least cultivate better working relationships—while Trump is still president?
I don’t think there’s any reason we shouldn’t. Trump is just one guy, even if he does have quite a following. One thing I would say is: don’t hate all of us, just because the government is doing what they’re doing. We aren’t ready to throw the keys in and say we’re done yet. The one thing about farmers, especially in the springtime, is that we’re pretty optimistic.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
