Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler speaks at a climate rally outside of Sen. Ron Johnson’s Madison office in 2021. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

There is no clear frontrunner in the Democratic primary for governor of Wisconsin. Attorney General Josh Kaul, with his name recognition and two statewide wins under his belt, might have been the favorite, except that he decided not to get in. Now former Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Ben Wikler has announced he won’t be using his star power and prodigious fundraising skills to take a run at the governor’s mansion.

I caught up with Wikler Thursday by phone while he was at home with his kids, working on a book about Wisconsin and national politics and fielding phone calls from reporters about his decision to stay out of the race. Despite his decision, Wikler is still involved in politics behind the scenes, raising money and helping create an infrastructure to support his party’s eventual nominee for governor as well as Democrats who are trying to win seats in the Legislature and in Congress.

Wikler deserves a lot of credit for the recent hopeful direction of politics in Wisconsin — culminating in the election of a liberal state Supreme Court majority that forced an end to gerrymandered voting maps which previously locked in hugely disproportionate Republican legislative majorities in our 50/50 state. His vision for a progressive political revival in Wisconsin and across the nation delighted a lot of grassroots Democrats as well as Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show”, who urged him to run for president after listening to Wikler describe what Democrats need to do to reconnect with working class voters and turn the political tide.

As Wisconsin Republicans coalesce around U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, a yes-man for President Donald Trump, the stakes in the Wisconsin governor’s race could not be higher. But Wikler says he’s not worried.

“I think there are multiple candidates who can absolutely win and could do a perfect job on our side,” he said on the phone. “I don’t see the same on the Republican side. I think Tom Tiffany is a real political misfire for the GOP in a moment like this.”  

“I have a real conviction that we have a very clear path to be able to win. Not without a fight — this is Wisconsin — but I would rather be Team Democrats and democracy and an economy that works for working people than Team MAGA and tariffs and authoritarian masked men grabbing people off the street.”

Still, on a recent weekend drive through the Driftless Area, I saw huge Trump banners flying over fields of soybeans farmers can’t sell because of Trump’s trade war with China. It might be hard for some voters, even those who are hurt by Trump administration policies, to switch teams as people’s core sense of identity is so tied to polarized political team loyalties.

“I think it’s true for all of us that it’s hard to come to the conclusion that it’s time to change after you’ve been going one way for a good while,” Wikler said. “But it’s also the case that in Wisconsin things don’t have to change very much to get a dramatically different result.”

Elections in this swing state will continue to be close. “But there’s every possibility of being able to energize and turn out several percentage points more people in a way that could generate a Democratic trifecta and help flip the U.S. House and shift power in local offices across the state,” he added.

In his unsuccessful bid for national Democratic Party chair, Wikler talked about how Democrats had lost working class votes and needed to reclaim their lost status as champions of working people. They needed to “show the receipts” for their work winning better health care, affordable housing, more opportunity and a better quality of life for the people that used to be their natural constituency, he said.

On “The Daily Show” he held up Gov. Tony Evers as an example, saying he ran on the promise to “fix the damn roads” and beat former Gov. Scott Walker. Then he fixed the roads and won a second time.

But a lot of progressives, especially public school advocates, were disappointed with the budget deals Evers struck with Republicans. This week DPI released final numbers showing that 71% of public schools across the state will get less money from the state under the current budget. Where are the receipts Wisconsin Democrats can show to make the case they will make things better?

Evers blocked a lot of bad things, Wikler noted. And in many ways things are better in Wisconsin, even as the national scene gets darker and darker under the current administration, he said. “The things that are going well are the kind of locally driven and state-level things that are not falling apart,” he said. He contrasted that with the Walker years when “there was a sense that core aspects of people’s personal lives were falling apart. People were leaving their careers in education and changing their whole life plans, because it felt like the pillars that supported their vision for how their lives were going to work were falling apart.”

There’s a “profound sense of threat” from Washington today, he added. But he believes that Democrats can stave off disaster in Wisconsin if they win a “trifecta” in state government, which he thinks is possible.

He draws on examples from the state’s history as a progressive leader, from the  famous 1911 legislative session that laid the groundwork for the New Deal to the first law protecting victims of domestic violence in the 1970s.

“There’s these moments when Wisconsin really leaps forward. And we have a chance for the first one in more than half a century in 2027,” he said. “And that’s the  moment where you have to deliver for people really meaningfully.”

He compares the chance of that happening in Wisconsin to the “Minnesota miracle,” when Tim Walz was re-elected governor and Democrats swept state government in our neighboring state. 

Trying to bring about a miraculous transformation in Wisconsin doesn’t mean Wikler is unrealistic. You don’t have to look any farther than Wisconsin’s southern neighbor, Illinois, to see the dystopian possibilities of our current politics. “I don’t think the way [Illinois] Gov. JB Pritzker is talking is alarmist at all,” Wikler says. “If you talk to people who fought for democracy in countries where it disappeared, the early days of the downfall look like what we’re seeing right now.”

To resist, we have to do multiple things, he said — fight in the courts, fight in downballot races, protect election administration “but also keep in mind that ultimately, the people whose votes you have to win are the people who already feel like democracy is not working for them. They think that all politicians are already corrupt, and warnings about the threats to democracy feels like just more partisan blather. And you have to connect with their lived experience and the things that they think about when they’re not thinking about politics. That’s where fixing the roads becomes the only way to get off the road to authoritarianism.”

Sounds like a good plan to me. 

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China isn’t pleased about the 100 percent tariffs that Canada imposed on its imports, including electric vehicles, in October last year. Seeking to persuade Ottawa to reconsider, Beijing has offered to lift its own retaliatory tariffs on Canadian agricultural goods.

Even so, Canada’s automotive parts industry head has cautioned against easing the restrictions, warning that doing so could open the door for low-cost Chinese EVs to flood the market.

Trade Tensions at Full Charge

When the tariffs were first introduced, Canada described them as measures to safeguard national security and defend domestic manufacturing. Officials also argued that China’s electric vehicle industry benefited from unfair state subsidies.

Beijing’s reaction was swift. The People’s Republic struck back with tariffs on Canadian agriculture, imposing a 100 percent rate on canola oil and meat, along with a 75.8 percent duty on canola seed.

Read: Canada Might Let Chinese EVs In And The Reason Has Nothing To Do With Cars

According to Chinese ambassador Wang Di, Beijing is ready to roll back the tariff measures if Canada does the same.

“If Canada removes the unilateral unjustified tariffs on Chinese products, China will also reciprocate accordingly,” he said, “and if the EV tariffs are removed, then China will also remove the tariffs on the relevant products of Canada.”

The Canadian government says it is conducting an informal review of its tariffs on Chinese EVs, CTV News reports. It adds that since the trade dispute started, exports from Saskatchewan dropped 76 percent in August from the year prior.

Both the premiers of Manitoba and Saskatchewan have called for tariffs to be lowered to protect the local canola industries.

A Divided Response

Still, Flavio Volpe, president of Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, has pushed back against any move to abandon the tariffs on Chinese EVs.

“I am reminding (the premiers) publicly, that if Canada is in a trade war with a country, then the response has to be a Canadian response,” he told CTV.

“These Chinese EVs are not made for profit, they are subsidized. We’re in the middle of a game, and the only thing that changed… was the Chinese ambassador said, ‘If you do this, we’ll give you that.’ And last time I checked, the Chinese ambassador was sent from Beijing, not from Ottawa.”

Sources: CTV News

Wisconsin landscape | Photo by Greg Conniff for Wisconsin Examiner

President Donald Trump’s tariffs are becoming a major drain on Wisconsin’s agricultural economy. China stopped purchasing U.S. soybeans amid a new trade war this spring, triggering a price collapse and leaving farmers wondering what to do with the bumper crop they are now harvesting. Cranberry growers say they’re facing low prices and market uncertainty, too, as other countries turn away their products because of tariffs. 

Small wonder the latest ag economy barometer published by Purdue University on Oct. 7 found that nationwide farmers say their economic condition is weakening. Despite expected record-high corn and soybean yields, farmers report they expect weaker financial performance in 2025 than in 2024 and have a weaker capital investment outlook.

Yet even as optimism about the farm economy is fading, support for Trump among farmers remains strong.

Back in March, 70% of farmers who answered the Purdue survey said they believed tariffs would strengthen the agricultural economy in the long run. That number dropped steeply to 51% by September. Still a large majority — 71% – continue to believe the country as a whole is moving in the right direction, and 80% believe the Trump administration is likely or very likely to give them an aid package to compensate for the damage done by tariffs and trade wars.  

U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-Wisconsin) reinforced this hope on the WRDN radio podcast from the World Dairy Expo in Madison last week. Tiffany, who is running for governor, was asked what he says to farmers who are “fed up” with Trump’s tariffs. He replied that Trump tariffs are not going away, but, he said of the administration, “they’re gonna use some of that tariff revenue, which is significant, to help farmers out. Because they know, I mean, President Trump has no better friends than the farmers of America.” 

Trump has suggested he will unveil another farm bailout as he did during his first administration, when China responded to steep tariffs by scaling back purchases of U.S. agricultural products. 

The problem with the bailout solution, says Gbenga Ajilore, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former senior adviser for rural development at USDA, is that the revenue generated by tariffs that Trump proposes to convert into handouts to farmers comes directly from the farmers themselves.  

“It’s not even like robbing Peter to pay Paul. It’s like robbing Peter to pay Peter,” Ajilore said in a phone interview Wednesday. “What’s happening is that there are tariffs on a lot of goods — looking at steel, aluminum, looking at fertilizers. So farmers are paying more for their inputs. We’re seeing this impacting these companies like Caterpillar, John Deere. And so you can say there’s a lot of revenue, but it’s coming out of the pockets of consumers, businesses and farmers.” 

If farmers are not already feeling seasick as the Trump administration spins the ag economy around on a cycle of tariffs and bailouts, the administration’s immigration crackdown is also making them queasy. 

A panel discussion at last week’s World Dairy Expo focused on a labor shortage made worse by a Trump administration that seems hell-bent on deporting the agricultural workforce.

The recent ICE action that scooped up 24 dairy workers in Manitowoc, most of whom had no criminal records, and deportations of entire crews of legally present H2A workers in Texas had farmers who attended the discussion worried.

“Taking hard-working employees off farms does not make communities safer,” said Brain Rexing, a dairy farmer from Indiana. He described the Hispanic workers on his farm as “way more than employees. — they work together with me and my family side to side.”

Like other farmers, he said, he goes to bed at night worrying about his workers and wakes up in the morning worrying about them. Instead of threatening farmworkers with deportation, Rexing and other farmers at the Expo said, Congress should finally get around to creating a year-round visa that recognizes their essential contributions to the U.S. economy. 

U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisconsin) spoke to the group and assured them that the Trump administration has their back. He had personally spoken with Elon Musk he said. “I was like, hey, Elon, there’s two groups of people in the United States that we need to really watch out for. One of them are service members and veterans, because they gave us our freedom and keep us free. And the second one are our farmers, because they feed us. .. So he really zoned in on that and grasped it,” Van Orden said. 

Another “incredibly, incredibly strong proponent of the dairy industry,” he added, “is Tom Homan.”  Homan is Trump’s border czar and the architect of the family separation policy during the first Trump administration. “He was raised on a dairy farm,” Van Orden said. “So keep that in mind. There are some people in D.C. that understand what’s going on. We’re trying our best to help you. So I would just ask that you stay in the business and that God will bless you.”

It was not the most reassuring speech. But Van Orden also asked the dairy farmers in the room to support his proposal for a new system to make their workforce legal, which would impose a fine on employers and dairy workers and then require the workers to self-deport before returning to the country under a new federal program that would allow them to do their jobs legally. He introduced the bill in July and it was referred to the House Agriculture Committee, of which he is a member. 

The farmers, understandably, had a lot of questions.

What was their workers’ incentive to participate? How long would it take the government to process their paperwork, remove them from the country and let them back in again? How do they know they won’t be deported as soon as they come back? 

These are reasonable fears, given the terrifying scenes of ICE grabbing people off the street, busting down doors and zip-tying parents and children, sweeping up people with and without legal authorization to be in the country, whether or not they have committed any crime.

Recently, even the Trump administration’s Labor Department declared that the nation’s food system faces an emergency due to the administration’s aggressive mass deportation program, warning in a federal filing uncovered by the American Prospect that the immigration crackdown on agricultural workers has created a significant “risk of supply shock-induced food shortages.” 

“The Department does not believe American workers currently unemployed or marginally employed will make themselves readily available in sufficient numbers to replace large numbers of aliens,” the filing states, contradicting Trump administration rhetoric about immigrants stealing American jobs.

The solution proposed by Trump’s labor department is to pay H2A seasonal agricultural workers even less — offsetting the cost to employers of a terrified workforce that is disinclined to show up to work after ICE raids.

It seems like a weird solution, as David Dayen of the American Prospect observed, “since cutting wages across the sector will likely drive existing workers to look elsewhere for jobs.”

But there is a dark logic behind the move to slash wages for agricultural workers in the midst of the moral panic over immigration. Dayen quotes Antonio De Loera-Brust of the United Farm Workers, who sees a government threatening mass deportations working hand in glove with employers who benefit from a powerless immigrant workforce. 

“We call it the ‘Deport and Replace’ strategy,” De Loera-Brust said, “which is defined above all to make it easier for corporate agribusiness to exploit its workers, whether terrified undocumented residents or an unlimited pool of cheap foreign guest workers … The Trump administration would rather expand the abusive H-2A program than do right by the workers who are already here, feeding America for decades.”

This situation does not directly apply to Wisconsin dairy farms, since dairy workers are not eligible for H2A visas. But it was not at all clear from Van Orden’s remarks at the World Dairy Expo that he understands that fact. 

“The H2A program is broken and it sucks. There you go. That’s the whole press conference,” he said after he was introduced. Later, he referred to “all this garbage you’ve been dealing with, these H2As and H2Bs” insisting his own proposal for a new visa system would work better. In fact, dairy farmers are not dealing with the H2A (seasonal) or H2B (non-agricultural) visa systems at all.

Van Orden did acknowledge the difficult situation for the dairy industry, which depends on a labor force 60% to 90% of which is made up of immigrants who lack any sort of legal authorization to be in the country, since there is no such thing as a year-round visa for low-skilled work.

“Rocks are heavy. Trees are made of wood. Gravity is real. If we deport every single person that is working in the agriculture industry, the hospitality industry and the construction industry, all of those industries will shutter in a moment’s notice,” Van Orden declared.

But it’s unclear if his plan, the Agricultural Workforce Reform Act of 2025, will help.

One farmer asked if his workers would be barred from returning to the U.S. if they committed a traffic violation (a common concern in Wisconsin, where immigrants without legal papers cannot get a driver’s license). Van Orden fobbed him off, saying that would be a question for the executive branch to resolve through its rule-making process.

Several farmers listening to Van Orden affirmed that they supported Trump’s goal of securing the border, but added that they thought that mission had been accomplished. Now they hoped the administration would turn its attention to a new public safety issue — the threat mass deportations pose to the U.S. food supply.  

Farmers across the country seem inclined to give the Trump administration the benefit of the doubt. But the doubt is growing. 

“Farmers are getting it in so many ways; their exports are down, their costs are up, and they’re losing their workforce,” said Ajilore, the former USDA economist. Given all that, farmer sentiment “actually hasn’t really moved as much as you would expect, given what’s happening,” he said. He attributes it to a wait-and-see attitude among farmers who have faithfully supported Trump for years. But now, he added, “the impact is starting to really hit home.”

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Mexico is weighing a steep new tariff that could reshape its car market for years to come, proposing a 50 percent duty on vehicles imported from nations without free trade agreements. Importantly, that list includes China, meaning the move could weigh heavily on fast-growing player BYD and even affect Tesla at a time when electric car sales in Mexico are beginning to gain momentum.

Read: Mexico Has Had Enough With Chinese Car Imports

The tariff proposal, made public last week, wouldn’t stop at EVs. It would also hit combustion-powered cars from countries with no trade deals, a group that includes South Korea and China, both global automotive heavyweights, as well as India, Indonesia, and Russia, which play a smaller or more regionally focused role in the industry. Interestingly, American brands would be spared.

Automakers on Edge

Analysts suggest the new levy could put the brakes on BYD’s rapid rise in Mexico. Eugenio Grandio, president of the Electric Mobility Association in the country, put it plainly: “It’s definitely a game-changer. Fifty percent is a very aggressive number.”

Reuters reports that the tariff plan still requires approval from Mexico’s Congress before it can be enacted. General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis would sidestep the new duties thanks to their production plants in Mexico, which let them bring in a share of vehicles without tariffs. On the other hand, while BYD and Tesla have both discussed adding factories to their Mexican portfolios, so far those projects have failed to progress.

Tesla Has Solutions

Tesla’s pipeline to Mexico has so far depended entirely on its Shanghai facility, which has produced every Model 3 and Model Y sold there since mid-2023, Salvador Rosas of the Tesla Owners Club in Mexico, told Reuters. Still, analysts suggest the company has a buffer, with local stockpiles that could give it room to shift supply from other plants, including those in the United States.

BYD’s Mexican Plans Shunted

Back in 2023, BYD said it would build a new car factory in Mexico. However, these plans were ditched earlier this year after pressure from Mexican authorities who were worried approving such a plant could be detrimental to trade relations with the United States and would potentially upset President Donald Trump.

Despite the setback, BYD has enjoyed a meteoric rise in Mexico in recent years. Last year, it sold approximately 40,000 vehicles in the country, accounting for nearly half of all EV and plug-in hybrid sales nationwide. That momentum has continued into this year, with sales on track to double once again.

Chinese cars are making huge gains in Asia, Europe and South America, but brutal 100 percent tariffs have so far kept them locked out of North America. There’s a chance, though, that this won’t last much longer as Canadian lawmakers are considering scrapping the steep tariffs – and the country’s drivers think they should.

In a recent pole conducted by Canada’s CTV News, almost two thirds of respondents said they either supported or somewhat supported removing the 100 percent duty on Chinese-made EVs. A total 29 percent supported the removal of tariffs and 33 percent somewhat supported the move. Nine percent of those asked weren’t sure, while 27 percent either opposed or somewhat opposed ditching the duty altogether.

Related: Canada Freezes EV Mandate And GM Boss Can’t Stop Smiling

Canada’s government imposed the tariffs 11 months ago claiming the measure would shield local automakers from unfair Chinese competition. An EU study that led to similar, but less harsh, tariffs in the Old Continent found Chinese automakers received various forms of financial help from their country’s government.

Sliding EV Sales

Now, however, Canadian lawmakers have admitted that the tariffs are up for review. One of the reasons is that EV sales have cratered in the country, with figures released this week showing registrations of fully electric cars north of the US border are down a massive 39.2 percent, in part due to the lower availability of incentives.

Canada recently scrapped its mandate that 20 percent of all new vehicles be zero emissions by 2026 having realized the target was unworkable. Giving drivers access to more EVs, and ones with attractively low prices at that, could potentially boost electric car takeup – or so the thinking goes.

CTV Survey: Do You Support Removing 100 Percent Tariff on Chinese EVs?

Source: CTV News

Pressure From the Fields

There’s another force pushing for the removal of tariffs, though, and it’s nothing to do with cars or meeting lower emissions targets: it’s farmers. The agricultural industry hopes that by Canada agreeing to scrap 100 percent tariffs on EVs, or at least lower the rate, might make China willing to remove its own 75.8 percent tariffs on Canadian crops such as Canola.

Canada’s PM Mark Carney last week pledged $370 million CAD ($267m US) in support for the Canola market to help it weather the tariffs. The Canola industry supports 206,000 Canadian jobs and contributes $43.7 billion CAD ($31.6 bn US) to the country’s economy, according to Canola Digest, so the local government obviously pays great attention to it.

Automakers aren’t the only ones walking back their electric vehicle plans as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has decided to give companies additional “flexibility.” As such, he’s waiving 2026 model year vehicles from the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard and will conduct a broader review to “provide additional flexibilities and reduce costs.”

As the prime minister’s office explained, the government wants to make “targeted regulatory adjustments” to ensure automotive companies remain competitive during the transition to electric vehicles. They added the “automotive sector is essential to Canada’s economy, supporting jobs, trade, innovation and the green transition.”

More: Canada Requires All New Cars Sold By 2035 To Be Electrified

The Electric Vehicle Availability Standard originally required at least 20% of new light-duty vehicle sales be zero emission by 2026. However, the rules will be amended to remove that target to reduce “economic pressure due to tariffs.”

On top of that, the government is reviewing other EVAS deadlines to ensure they “reflect market realities” and don’t place an “undue burden on automakers.” As you may recall, 60% of sales are supposed to be zero emission vehicles by 2030, while that number would rise to 100% by 2035.

Despite hitting the brakes on Canada’s electric vehicle push, Carney’s office said zero emission vehicles are “crucial for addressing climate change,” improving health, and creating significant opportunities for the economy. However, the government noted the transition to EVs is “unfolding amid significant short-term economic uncertainty” and “Canada must carefully consider how recent U.S. policy uncertainty could affect the affordability and availability of ZEVs in the integrated North American market.”

Interestingly, the government said they’ll “explore options to bring more affordable electric vehicles to Canadians.” They didn’t go into specifics, but it will be interesting to see if they’ll crack the door open to Chinese brands.

The changes to the Electric Vehicle Availability Standard were revealed as part of a larger announcement that aims to “protect, build, and transform Canadian strategic industries.” Part of this includes a new Buy Canadian Policy for the federal government as well as a Regional Tariff Response Initiative, which aims to help small and medium-sized businesses impacted by U.S. tariffs.