Evers says tariffs will affect everyone in Wisconsin, criticizes Congress for not stepping in

by Baylor Spears, Wisconsin Examiner
March 5, 2025

Gov. Tony Evers criticized congressional Republicans Tuesday, saying that the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs will be “significant” and felt by everyone, especially Wisconsin’s farmers. 

Trump’s 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada and increased tariffs to 20% on goods from China went into effect Tuesday morning. Both China and Canada have announced retaliatory tariffs against the U.S., and Mexico has threatened them. The sweeping tariffs are expected to increase costs for Americans on everything from fresh fruit to electronics to cars.

“It sucks, it’s bad — no good,” Evers said at a WisPolitics event. 

About half of Wisconsin’s exports go to the three countries. 

“It’s gonna impact our farmers, let’s just think about how that plays out. They’re the chief buyer of our products” Evers said after the event. “Let’s just talk about cheese. We won’t be able to sell that… Now, is that a big deal for Wisconsin? Not everybody eats cheese, right? But it’s a $1.8 billion industry, and it’s going to be just crushed.”

Evers accused congressional Republicans of abdicating their duty in allowing the tariffs to move forward.

“I am just so disappointed in Congress,” Evers said at. “There is no legislative branch. … If Congress thought this through for two minutes, they would understand how bad tariffs are.” 

Evers told reporters that his administration will work to challenge the tariffs in court, but that “at the end of the day, we gotta get Congress to do something. 

“Is there anybody on the Republican side that believes what’s happening in DC is appropriate? I think there are a whole bunch. … They’re just afraid to come out and talk about it,” Evers said. 

The tariffs are being implemented in the midst of Wisconsin’s state budget cycle. 

Evers has proposed increasing the state’s budget by about 20%, including hiking K-12 and higher education spending and cutting taxes. The increases would be funded with revenue from the federal government, state taxes and the state’s $4 billion budget surplus.

Evers said the tariffs and potential federal funding cuts could “of course” affect the budget, and that the threats are making it difficult to plan. His plan would not spend the whole surplus, but would leave the state with over $500 million in the state’s “checking account”, which he had said was because of the unpredictability of the Trump administration. The state also has a rainy day fund of about $1.9 billion.

“We weren’t certain about the economy. We weren’t certain about what’s going to happen in Washington D.C. … I’m questioning whether that $500 million is enough to help us get through this,” Evers said. 

Superintendent race and DPI 

During the event, Evers also again declined to endorse a candidate in the upcoming state Superintendent race. Incumbent Jill Underly, who has Democratic-backing, is running against education consultant Brittany Kinser, a school voucher proponent with Republican-backing.

“I’m not putting myself into that race,” Evers said, noting that he didn’t endorse in the last election for the position four years ago. 

While he wouldn’t endorse, Evers did comment on issues at the center of the race, including state testing standards, school funding and Underly’s handling of the issues while in office. 

Evers said Underly’s budget proposal, which would have invested over $4 billion in public education, was too high. 

“There was no way that we could take care of schools and other issues,” Evers said. “I mean it was ridiculous.” His own proposal includes over $3 billion for Wisconsin K-12 education. Republican lawmakers have criticized both plans, saying they are unrealistic increases. 

The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) approved changes to the names and cut scores used for achievement levels on the state’s standardized tests last year — a move that Evers as well as Republican lawmakers have criticized. 

Evers said his “issue” was not necessarily the outcome of the testing changes, but rather with a lack of communication with the public about the changes. The process for the testing changes included input from over 80 educators and other stakeholders, but Evers said the changes should have been vetted publicly before approval. 

“[Underly] didn’t run it by anyone,” Evers said. 

Evers said he was “probably” going to veto a Republican bill that would reverse the recent changes and tie the state’s testing standards to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), a nationwide assessment meant to provide representative data about student achievement. The bill is in the Senate, having passed the Assembly last month.

“I have a strong belief that [DPI is] an independent agency and they can make those decisions, so having the Legislature suddenly say ‘well, we’re the experts here and this is what the cut scores should be,’ I think that’s wrong-headed.”

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