Roger Marshall Tariffs: Kansas Senator Faces Backlash
Roger Marshall tariffs became the flashpoint of a tense exchange at a Topeka business forum on Friday, when a Kansas manufacturer told the Republican senator that President Donald Trump’s trade policies were hurting his company — and Marshall answered that the executive’s experience was “different from most.”
Kansas Manufacturer Says Tariffs Squeezed His Business
Zac Surritt, business development director at R&S Maintenance — a third-generation family metal fabrication and machine shop in Meriden — confronted Marshall during a Greater Topeka Chamber of Commerce forum at Great Overland Station on October 16. Surritt said the company’s global demand had fallen, shipping costs had climbed, and his workers’ cost of living had risen.
“We’re feeling a lot of crunch because of the tariffs,” Surritt told the senator. “We were ready to expand and grow right up until about this year when tariffs started hurting not only us but our customers.”
He said some of the company’s food and beverage manufacturing clients had seen their own products taken off shelves in other countries, leaving less money for capital projects. The expansion plan was put on hold.
Marshall: “Your Experience Is Different From Most”
Marshall responded with open skepticism about the scope of the problem. “I think your experience is different from most of the other manufacturing companies that I have talked to,” the senator said. “Most of them are expanding. How’s your business?”
Surritt told him business had slowed and margins were down. “Business has slowed down this year. Our margins aren’t where they were a couple years ago,” he said.
Marshall did not budge, insisting that “most manufacturing across the state of Kansas is growing because of these tariffs.”
The Defense: China, Jobs, and “Level the Playing Field”
Marshall framed the tariffs as a necessary response to foreign competition. “I wish we didn’t have to use tariffs,” he said. “But I’m tired of seeing jobs leave America to go overseas, and that’s exactly what we saw happening.”
He pointed to China in particular: “When China, they’re able to use slave labor — I mean, this is almost a human rights issue for me.”
The senator also defended the trade friction between the United States and Canada, saying the new tariffs were needed to “level the playing field” against countries dumping Chinese aluminum and steel into the American market.
The exchange comes as Marshall faces a competitive reelection fight against Democratic challenger Rev. Adam Hamilton, a race the Cook Political Report has called a tossup.
Source: Kansas Reflector