LaHood talks tariffs, DOGE

U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, center, with Chenoa City Council member Spencer Shipley & Mayor Dave Shane.

Legislators are keeping a close eye on tariffs and U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood (R-16) considers himself lucky to represent a heavy agriculture district.

The Congressman visited Chenoa Friday morning to visit with the mayor and discuss a number of issues both locally and nationally.

He refers to McLean and Livingston counties as important farming communities.

“My district is the tenth largest ag district in the country and, of course, agriculture is the number one industry in the state.”

The Congressman worries a little about tariffs at the national level.

“About 40 percent of the corn and soybeans grown in my district go somewhere else around the world,” LaHood noted. “Those commodities get loaded on barges on the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, they go down to New Orleans and get shipped all around the world.”

LaHood said the country needs to be careful that tariffs don’t have a “collateral damage” effect on farmers and hurt those markets.

“When you get into a trade war, the first pawn is ag and that hurts our farmers here.”

Trump has done a good job going after bad actors like China, according to LaHood, which engage in trade practices that are not the same as every other industrialized country in the world.

“Using tariffs in a strategic and tactical way ought to be the approach,” said LaHood.

Representative LaHood acknowledges farmers have very thin margins and prices are not where they need to be. He thinks more emergency payments will be coming to farmers.

Regarding DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, LaHood gives the president credit for something he considers long overdue.

“Let’s remember what it stands for,” stated LaHood. “This would be a much different conversation if we were $36 trillion in surplus, but we are $36 trillion in debt. That’s the reality.”

He believes they have to figure out how to reduce the size of the federal government.

“It is inexcusable that we can’t shrink the size of the federal government.”

LaHood says having DOGE come in and make government more efficient is “a good thing.”