SIOUX FALLS S.D. (KELO) –Sen. Mike Rounds believes that the White House needs to clarify tariffs and expectations of other countries to establish fair trade, and he is expecting the White House to respond to the significant decline in the stock market.
Rounds talked about tariffs, the stock market and DOGE in a Friday interview with KELOLAND News.
Rounds said right now the White House has to clarify what tariffs are being imposed and whether or not they are stackable, as well as their expectations of other countries that they are negotiating with.
Managing student loans amongst federal confusion
“I’m hoping that a number of these other countries have been making contact with the White House and that they have begun that process of finding a path forward,” Rounds said. “I think what the president is trying to do is to establish fair trade and in his opinion, he thinks that our country has been treated unfairly with a number of tariffs that have been inappropriately applied to us for a number of years. This is an opportunity to showcase that, but also to find a path forward.”
One impact South Dakotans could see is to the agriculture district, adding that a huge amount of our economic base is based upon being able to do free trade with our ag products across the world, Round said.
“We haven’t had a new trade bill, a new trade deal in over four years and yet, markets here in South Dakota, the amount that’s exported is close to about $5.4 billion a year, we’d like to see that expanded,” Rounds said. “Probably the best way to have that happen is to have some of those tariffs on our products come off. The first response from China was to increase those tariffs, and I think that’s got to be resolved.”
Rounds added that farmers today already know that the commodity prices have not been good. He added they also know that if the U.S. gets trade deals put together, the value of that commodity for them goes up.
“We need higher commodity prices, and one way to do that is to make sure that we are seen as a dependable partner in terms of overseas markets,” Rounds said. “We need to get past the tariffs, and we’ve got to do everything we can to avoid the retaliatory tariffs that other countries are going to place on our commodity products.”
Rounds said “In the meantime, I just ask people to give the president a little bit of room to see if this negotiation will be a positive one. I think the markets will respond appropriately if they see a trade agreement completed.”
Feeding SD braces for federal budget cuts to the USDA
Rounds also talked about the decline in the stock market, adding that while markets do go up and down, the dip in the stock market that we are seeing is a significant one. He said it’s going to take some time to recover.
“I don’t think that they’re in a panic mode, but I do think that they have to recognize and reassure the American public that this pain is going to be short-term in nature and that they want to get this resolved as quickly as possible, and that’s what I expect from the White House, in the near future,” Rounds said.
He described the recent Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts by saying DOGE basically went in and unplugged everything, and then based upon who was hollering the loudest, they started plugging things back in.
“We know that President Trump has made it clear recently that he expects that DOGE will be more like a scalpel than like a sledgehammer,” Rounds said. “I think he was as surprised as the rest of us when we found that the approach they took was to go in agency by agency and rather than using advanced technologies to go through and consider each office.”
