Trump tariff and immigration policies score with west Michigan farmers

HART, MI – Manuel Hovey, 76, remembers what it used to be like in Oceana County.

Crates of cherries would sit idly in its farms at the end of the season, the retired farmer recalled, after Michigan grocers had already sufficiently stocked up with comparatively cheap fruit imported from Latin America. The cross-continent competitors of Oceana’s farmers were consistently able to flood the American market, Hovey said, because “labor’s so cheap,” and because “they could use all the chemicals we can’t.”

He soared to victory in 2024 on a promise to end a period in which he said the United States was consistently ripped off by other countries under open trade agreements. That vow endeared him to Hovey and many of his neighbors in the heavily agricultural Oceana County. Pair it with Trump’s plans to end illegal immigration while lowering costs for farmers to hire migrant workers, and you had a presidential candidate who resonated with the area’s farmers more than any in decades.

Oceana County, on Michigan’s western lakeshore north of Muskegon, is 80% white, 15% Hispanic and classified as a “rural middle America” county by the American Communities Project, a Michigan State University-based research effort that breaks counties into one of 15 categories based on demographic data.

As voters nationwide sour on the Republican president over high prices ahead of the 2026 midterms, a tour through the area’s hilly pastures and sleepy villages reinforces the endurance of support among at least some parts of Trump’s base. Here, residents say his approaches to two of his most signature and controversial policy areas — immigration and trade — are, in fact, benefiting Oceana County’s bellwether sector.

“We’re extremely happy with how he’s running the country,” said Andy Riley of Riley Orchards, which grows asparagus, cherries and apples, earlier this year.

Still, when it comes to trade in particular, some supporters have concerns about the precise implementation of Trump’s ideas.

And all the while, the county’s relatively small contingent of political dissenters have felt their doubts about the president deepen, seeing a cruel immigration agenda that instills fear in the county’s large community of immigrants, many from Mexico.

Tariffs get mixed reviews

On a bitterly cold February morning, Paul Arkema sat behind the desk of his wood-panelled office, which rests on a gentle perch of the Country Dairy campus.

A co-owner of the iconic Michigan company, he said he feels some trade the United States engages in lacks fairness. Are tariffs the best answer to mitigate that, though? He’s come to doubt it.

One of his company’s key products is chocolate milk, and though the milk part is handled by Country Dairy’s cows, the chocolate comes from overseas.

“There’s an 11% tariff on our cost per pound,” Arkema said. Accordingly, he added, Country Dairy has had to raise the price of chocolate milk.

While several farmers who spoke to The Free Press suggested tariffs have opened up the market in Michigan under Trump, Jamie Clover Adams, the executive director of the Michigan Asparagus Advisory Board, said they’ve not significantly moved the needle for asparagus farmers in the state.

That’s because, under the US-Canada-Mexico trade agreement, asparagus from Mexico, the leading supplier of the vegetable in the US, is exempt from tariffs, she said. And, while there is a 10% tariff on asparagus from Peru, the second-biggest supplier of asparagus in the US, imports from the South American country “didn’t slow down” in 2025 compared with previous years.

Adams’ association, she said, has asked the Trump administration to consider a quota policy for asparagus imports, instead of using flat tariff rates to balance trade. Such a system would set a ceiling on how much of the vegetable could be shipped into the US. That way, countries can only import “however much the market can bear.”

There’s perhaps more consensus among Oceana County’s farmers about Trump’s approach to immigration.

Under the Biden Administration, Michigan farmers complained of exorbitant labor costs under the federally-administered H-2A program, which gives visas to migrant workers filling seasonal jobs. Trump’s administration has reworked the program, and those costs are starting to come down.

Of asparagus farmers, Adams said they can now look at the market knowing they “can be a little more competitive.” Farmers are realizing, “‘Maybe I can make a better margin this year and I can reinvest in that piece of equipment that I need. Or if I need a piece of equipment that makes me more efficient, I’ve got a little capital to do that,’” Adams said.

There’s also support for Trump’s mass deportation campaign: the farmers the Free Press spoke to said they rely on the H-2A program, so deporting illegal immigrants doesn’t affect their workforce.

And, though some voters nationwide have been shaken by violent images of immigration enforcement in cities like Minneapolis, several Oceana residents said the issue gets overblown by the media.

Compared with the previous two decades he’s lived there, Doug Knoublach, 52, who voted for Trump, said he hasn’t observed “one difference” in the scale of immigration enforcement in Oceana County since the president took office last January.

In a county composed mostly of what he called “Trump lovers,” many have been dissatisfied with an influx of Mexican immigrants over the decades, he said.

While Knoublach has had positive experiences growing up on a street with Mexican neighbors and noted that the United States has always been a nation of immigrants, he’s observed things that he suggested are changing the fabric of his community.

Knoublach was critical of the sign at the high school near his house displaying Spanish now, and said he’s seen younger members of the immigrant community acting suspiciously, and waving Mexican flags.

Standing behind the cash register at Tienda La Palma, a Mexican market in Shelby’s quaint downtown, on a sunny, yet frigid Friday afternoon in February, Elizabeth Suarez described an impending threat.

Oceana County’s immigrants are aware, she said, that Immigration Customs and Enforcement has been concentrated on Grand Rapids, located about an hour and a half southeast.

For now, they’re waiting for the moment that ICE “turns its head.”

Some families are already gone from the community.

At a coffee shop down the street was Kayla Young, a teacher at Shelby Elementary School. She recalled receiving the heavy news from a coworker in the fall that one of the “hardest working” students from her class last school year, a “good boy,” wasn’t back at school this year.

His family had self-deported, the colleague told her.

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The president’s penchant for brashness is occasionally offensive even to members of the Trump-voting majority in Oceana County.

Chad Coker owns Appletree Automotive in Hart, serves on the Hart Public Schools Board of Education as well as the county’s planning commission. He said he believes that Trump’s tariffs are poised to help the area’s farmers, as are the president’s changes to the H-2A program for migrant workers.

However, as a community leader himself, he strives to uphold principles of civility. In that regard, Coker, who has voted for Trump three times, suggested the president too often falls short. As an example, he pointed to a viral moment last year when Trump used a gendered epithet to accost a female journalist aboard Air Force One.

“In 2016, it was refreshing to see somebody have the balls that he did to say some of the things that he did,” Coker said. “But as time goes by, as you see it becoming more harmful, it went from funny and entertaining to, ‘Alright, let’s pull it back a little bit.’”

He added, “For me, I’m a school board president, business owner, on the planning commission, got family, kids. So, I can’t defend a guy who calls a reporter piggy.”

This story was produced in partnership with the American Communities Project and Michigan State University. For questions about the collaboration or this story, contact Free Press politics editor Emily Lawler: elawler@freepress.com.