THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

And that is why farm state Republicans have been worried about what our Bull-In-A-China-Shop in Chief President Shithead might end up doing as he tries to re-negotiate NAFTA.

Republican lawmakers from farm states have a loud, clear message for President Donald Trump: Don’t betray the rural voters who helped elect you by blowing up the trade agreements they rely on.

If you do, they’re warning, it could cost the Republican party in the 2018 midterm elections.

Rural state lawmakers want to hear reassurance from Trump in Tuesday’s State of the Union address that he won’t abandon the North American Free Trade Agreement. But they aren’t expecting it.

The president recently said pulling out of the North American Free Trade Agreement “would be frankly a positive for this country,” a quote that sent chills through the farming economy.

“You can talk about a better trade deal and push Humpty Dumpty off the wall, but putting Humpty Dumpty back on the wall is difficult,” said Senate Agriculture Chairman Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican who served on the Trump presidential campaign's Agricultural Advisory Committee.

“That’s the thing we want to avoid at all costs,” Roberts said. “You pull the trigger on that and you’re going to make a bad situation at farms even worse.”

Negotiators for the United States, Canada and Mexico sounded slightly more positive about the prospects for agreement on updating NAFTA after the sixth round of talks concluded Monday in Montreal. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told reporters he hoped “We start seeing some breakthroughs between now and the next round” of discussions, slated for late February in Mexico.

Even if Trump stays with NAFTA, however, Roberts worried that agriculture could be a lesser priority in NAFTA renegotiations or even be used as some kind of bargaining chip to get a better deal for manufacturing.

Fooling with NAFTA’s rural provisions could be politically costly. Voters who live in rural areas gave Trump a 61-34 percent advantage over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, according to network exit polls. Kansans voted overwhelmingly for Trump, by 56-36 percent.

The rural vote will be a factor in some of the most competitive Senate and House elections in the country this November, including races in Missouri, Indiana and California.

Mexico and Canada are the number two and three destinations for U.S. agricultural exports, approaching a combined $40 billion in sales in 2016. Our northern and southern neighbors are particularly important markets for dairy, meat and grain grown in the United States. Sales of some key exports, however, have been slipping amid heightened competition and rising tensions between the Trump administration and the Mexican and Canadian governments.

Democrats Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Joe Donnelly of Indiana are seeking re-election in states the president won by double digits in 2016, making them some of the most vulnerable members of the Senate. Missouri ranked 13th among states in terms of agricultural sales in 2016, while Indiana was 10th, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

California, alone, produces more than a third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of its fruits and nuts. The California Farm Bureau Federation notes that Canada is the second largest export destination for the state’s agricultural products, while Mexico is fifth.

As the Orange Bumblefuck tries to impress his 'base' and hurt those who have offended his snowflake sensibilities, he may seriously hurt those who loved in '16 but whould hate him if he fucks up their markets. Until then everybody can only cringe and wait.