Living in one of the most competitive congressional districts in the country, voters across Wisconsin’s 3rd District have already seen a steady parade of VIPs stumping for Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden — and they’re about to see President Donald Trump join the list of national figures trying to convince them that they have been good for the state, especially its farmers, despite a failing track record.
The White House announced Trump will travel to Chippewa County on Friday to make claims about the benefits he has brought to Wisconsin agriculture. Details about the place and time have not been made public.
Parts of the county are in the 3rd Congressional District, which has also seen Van Orden welcome Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr. on Monday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins last month on separate visits, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy in March, and Vice President JD Vance in February.
WisPolitics reports that administration spokesperson Liz Huston told them Trump will talk about what he’s done to lower costs, open new trade markets for Wisconsin products, reduce regulations, and create Rural Opportunity Zones that provide tax incentives for investments in rural areas.
“Wisconsin families put their faith in President Trump in 2024, and he has spent every single day since taking office fighting and delivering for them,” Huston said in a statement to Spectrum News that also credited the administration with creating “a stronger farm safety net, a doubled death tax exemption, [and] no taxes on rural property loan interest.”
Van Orden put out a social media post claiming Trump “loves Wisconsin and our Farmers! We are proud to host him here in America’s Dairy Land [sic] during Dairy Month.”
That claim will be met with skepticism by some farmers who are watching their overseas markets dry up due to punishing tariffs, coping with soaring healthcare costs, paying record prices for fuel, and wondering if the war with Iran will continue preventing fertilizer shipments from passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
“Derrick Van Orden has spent this week giving his favorite DC friends and members of the Trump administration a tour of the 3rd Congressional District where their broken promises have led to farm bankruptcies, soaring gas prices, and the loss of SNAP and Medicaid benefits for families,” said Haley King, deputy press secretary for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. “While his constituents are struggling and asking for relief, Van Orden is busy promoting the very administration that has accelerated their economic pain. Van Orden is clearly far more concerned about rescuing his failing re-election campaign than delivering results for working families in western Wisconsin.”
The Trump-Van Orden farm record
If Trump’s Wisconsin claims are similar to the remarks he delivered to a farm audience on the South Lawn of the White House in March, he’ll be relying on talking points already shown to be wrong or misleading, according to FactCheck.org by the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Among them:
FALSE – “American soybeans are now being shipped to China in record amounts.”
Soybeans are the second-largest crop in Wisconsin, and the state exports roughly two-thirds of their crop annually, according to the Wisconsin Soybean Association. But exports are not on track for a record this year, and the trade deal Trump announced last year would not have set record amounts anyway.
FALSE – “We saved 2 million American farms from extinction by virtually ending the unfair estate tax.”
There aren’t even 2 million farms in the United States, and very few of America’s 1.8 million farms are subject to the estate tax anyway. The “death tax” which was a very effective Republican talking point for many years has now largely become a myth because it only kicks in for a married couple at a $30 million threshold. Not only does that include virtually no family farms, but anyone over that amount usually has financial advisors who use insurance policies or trusts as vehicles to skirt the estate tax. What once was the country’s most progressive tax has become a giveaway to all but a fraction of a percent of the wealthiest households, diminishing federal revenue by an estimated $83 billion over the past ten years, funds that would have to be picked up by other taxpayers, including farmers, in order to avoid budget cuts.
FALSE – The price of beef “is starting to come down” and “we got rid of” an environmental regulation.
Anyone who shops for groceries knows beef prices are still skyrocketing, averaging $6.90 per pound nationwide and a record high of $9.64 in Wisconsin, up 14% over last year.
Part of the reason involves supply, with the US cattle herd at its lowest level since 1951. Reasons include demographics, drought, costs, and international competition rather than environmental protection. Trump was apparently referring to suggestions that factory farms face limits due to methane production from large cattle herds, but he did not “get rid of” any such regulation because it doesn’t exist. In the past, Trump has repeatedly made the false claim that clean energy advocates — associated with the label “Green New Deal” — want to get rid of all cows, as well as planes and cars.
FALSE – “We use money taken from tariffs [and] we gave you $12 billion in farm relief.”
As was the case in his first term, Trump had to spend billions of taxpayer dollars in bailout payments to farmers because of his trade wars. But the money, described as “one-time bridge payments,” came from the Commodity Credit Corporation via Congress. And as has been repeatedly demonstrated, tariffs are not paid by foreign companies or importing firms that recoup those costs by passing them on to the consumer, to the tune of around $1,700 per US family last year.
As for Van Orden’s primary claim, farmers will have to judge the merits of what he says about Trump.
“This administration, in conjunction with Congress, is putting our farmers first,” Van Orden said during Secretary Rollins’ visit. “Agriculture is the one industry that should touch every single American. It’s the most important industry we have.”
