Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer is calling for an end to recent tariffs on the food supply chain.
Since April 2025, the United States has raised import taxes on food supplies, fertilizer, and agricultural machinery. The Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development estimates those policies increased food prices by 3% that year.
Whitmer sent a letter to the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury this week blaming the federal policies for also reducing the state’s agricultural exports.
“We need a federal trade policy that works with our allies, brings supply chains home, and makes life more affordable. Families deserve relief from rising prices on the essentials they depend on every day,” Whitmer said in a press release.
Whitmer cited National Taxpayers Union Foundation data that suggest Michigan is paying some of the highest per-household costs because of federal tariffs.
Michigan State University Professor David Ortega is a food economist. He said that’s, in part, because Michigan has some of the most agricultural diversity in the country.
“We have hundreds of crops and livestock sectors here in the state of Michigan and we are very much interconnected with some of our major trading partners, especially just across the border in Canada,” Ortega said.
The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon. President Donald Trump has made tariffs a centerpiece of his agenda. He’s defended them as supporting American businesses.
The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center estimates food-related tariffs have mostly ranged between five and close to 14 percent since Trump launched the policies last April.
Ortega said it’s not an issue that will go away “overnight” without stability.
“This is why it’s so important to ensure that the message is getting across that our approach to policy, the approach to uncertainty that’s been created within trade policy and other aspects have made it much more difficult for our producers, our businesses,” Ortega said.
In her letter, Whitmer asked for the federal government to refund Michiganders for the extra money they’ve paid resulting from the tariffs.
Ortega, however, said it could be tough to refund consumers that difference though since they don’t pay the tariffs themselves.
“It’s hard to know what the actual burden is of that individual tariff on individual consumers. The tariffs are paid for by importers and exporting companies, and so that’s going to be much harder to really nail down,” Ortega said.
On a federal level, suppliers have already struggled with this after the U.S. Supreme Court declared many of Trump’s initial tariffs illegal and ordered the government to pay back money it collected.
