US farmers campaign against tariff

Farmers for Free Trade, a bipartisan coalition leading US farmers' opposition to tariffs, launched a new initiative on Wednesday highlighting the financial cost of the levies to the agricultural sector in major rural communities, as trade frictions escalated following a fresh round of duties Beijing and Washington slapped on each other's goods.

Joining the chorus of industrial groups in opposing the release of a fresh list of Chinese products subject to 25 percent tariffs starting on Aug 23, the agricultural group is distributing ads telling listeners "how decisions in Washington DC are hurting their farms, their neighbors and the economy of rural America", according to Sara Lilygren, president of the Farmers for Free Trade Board.

The farmers' group, chaired by former Republican senator Richard Lugar and Democrat senator Max Baucus, will run the advertisements - a mix of radio, television and print - initially in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin.