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Manhattan Institute Issues Commentary to New York Post: Panic Drove NYC and LA To Ban School AI - and That's a Big Mistake
NEW YORK, Sept. 23 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary:
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Panic Drove NYC and LA To Ban School AI - and That's a Big Mistake
By Jennifer Weber
New York Post
September 21st, 2026
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There are two ways for America's schools to get artificial intelligence wrong.
One is to hand a child a chatbot and let it do all the thinking -- and the other is to ban AI and pretend it doesn't exist.
New York and Los Angeles have both chosen the second option.
That means they're setting their students up to get the first.
Americans are split when it comes to AI, as ... Show Full Article NEW YORK, Sept. 23 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary: * * * Panic Drove NYC and LA To Ban School AI - and That's a Big Mistake By Jennifer Weber New York Post September 21st, 2026 - There are two ways for America's schools to get artificial intelligence wrong. One is to hand a child a chatbot and let it do all the thinking -- and the other is to ban AI and pretend it doesn't exist. New York and Los Angeles have both chosen the second option. That means they're setting their students up to get the first. Americans are split when it comes to AI, asevidenced by the debate that raged last week.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The New York Post (https://nypost.com/2026/09/21/opinion/panic-drove-nyc-la-to-ban-school-ai-and-thats-a-big-mistake)
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Jennifer Weber is a fellow for K-12 Education Policy at the Manhattan Institute.
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Original text here: https://manhattan.institute/article/panic-drove-nyc-and-la-to-ban-school-ai-and-thats-a-big-mistake
[Category: ThinkTank]
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Panic Drove NYC and LA To Ban School AI - and That's a Big Mistake
By Jennifer Weber
New York Post
September 21st, 2026
-
There are two ways for America's schools to get artificial intelligence wrong.
One is to hand a child a chatbot and let it do all the thinking -- and the other is to ban AI and pretend it doesn't exist.
New York and Los Angeles have both chosen the second option.
That means they're setting their students up to get the first.
Americans are split when it comes to AI, as ... Show Full Article NEW YORK, Sept. 23 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary: * * * Panic Drove NYC and LA To Ban School AI - and That's a Big Mistake By Jennifer Weber New York Post September 21st, 2026 - There are two ways for America's schools to get artificial intelligence wrong. One is to hand a child a chatbot and let it do all the thinking -- and the other is to ban AI and pretend it doesn't exist. New York and Los Angeles have both chosen the second option. That means they're setting their students up to get the first. Americans are split when it comes to AI, asevidenced by the debate that raged last week.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The New York Post (https://nypost.com/2026/09/21/opinion/panic-drove-nyc-la-to-ban-school-ai-and-thats-a-big-mistake)
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Jennifer Weber is a fellow for K-12 Education Policy at the Manhattan Institute.
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Original text here: https://manhattan.institute/article/panic-drove-nyc-and-la-to-ban-school-ai-and-thats-a-big-mistake
[Category: ThinkTank]
Ifo Institute: Children From Poorer Families Are Far Less Likely to Attend Childcare
MUNICH, Germany, Sept. 23 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release:
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22 September 2026
Children from Poorer Families Are Far Less Likely to Attend Childcare
Children from low-income families are far less likely to attend a childcare center. This is shown by an analysis by the ifo Institute, drawing on OECD data for European countries. Social disparities are greatest in France, where the enrollment rate for children under three years of age is 43 percentage points higher among the top income tertile than among the bottom tertile. The gap is also significant in Switzerland (37 ... Show Full Article MUNICH, Germany, Sept. 23 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release: * * * 22 September 2026 Children from Poorer Families Are Far Less Likely to Attend Childcare Children from low-income families are far less likely to attend a childcare center. This is shown by an analysis by the ifo Institute, drawing on OECD data for European countries. Social disparities are greatest in France, where the enrollment rate for children under three years of age is 43 percentage points higher among the top income tertile than among the bottom tertile. The gap is also significant in Switzerland (37percentage points), Ireland (25 percentage points), and the Netherlands (24 percentage points). In Germany, the difference is only about 8 percentage points.
"The problem is not primarily a lack of willingness on the part of the parents. Many disadvantaged families actually want childcare for their child. However, they are held back by a lack of available places, excessive costs, and complicated application processes," says ifo education researcher Henning Hermes. The gaps are smallest in the Nordic countries and in several Central and Eastern European countries. For children between the ages of three and five, the authors show much smaller disparities, which nevertheless persist in most countries.
The authors identify the shortage of childcare places as the biggest obstacle, which is closely linked to staff shortages and the comparatively low pay of early childhood educators. This is compounded by the costs, complicated and inconsistent application processes, and a lack of information. Up to a quarter of low-income households report unmet childcare needs for financial reasons. "In countries such as the Netherlands or Ireland, a childcare place costs more than one-fifth of the average income of dual-earner couples. As a consequence, the very children who would benefit most from early care systematically miss out," says Simon Wiederhold from the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), a co-author of the article.
The authors identify six approaches policymakers should adopt. First, more childcare places should be created, particularly in areas where children from disadvantaged families have been underserved up to now. Second, they call for better pay and more attractive working conditions for staff. Third, they advocate centralized, standardized application processes, coupled with the long-run goal of making childcare free of charge. Fourth, they recommend actively informing families and providing them with personalized assistance, for example through social services or pediatricians. Fifth, digital, multilingual support tools should be expanded. And sixth, they call for expansion plans that take demographic change more strongly into account.
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This article is based on OECD data on childcare through 2023 and compares trends since 2010. The team of authors consists of Henning Hermes (ifo Institute & LMU Munich), Philipp Lergetporer (TUM Campus Heilbronn), Frauke Peter (DZHW), and Simon Wiederhold (IWH & MLU Halle-Wittenberg). It draws on data from the OECD report "Reducing Inequalities by Investing in Early Childhood Education and Care" (2025). The study compares the enrollment rates for children from the top and bottom income tertiles.
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Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2026-09-22/children-poorer-families-are-far-less-likely-attend-childcare
[Category: ThinkTank]
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22 September 2026
Children from Poorer Families Are Far Less Likely to Attend Childcare
Children from low-income families are far less likely to attend a childcare center. This is shown by an analysis by the ifo Institute, drawing on OECD data for European countries. Social disparities are greatest in France, where the enrollment rate for children under three years of age is 43 percentage points higher among the top income tertile than among the bottom tertile. The gap is also significant in Switzerland (37 ... Show Full Article MUNICH, Germany, Sept. 23 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release: * * * 22 September 2026 Children from Poorer Families Are Far Less Likely to Attend Childcare Children from low-income families are far less likely to attend a childcare center. This is shown by an analysis by the ifo Institute, drawing on OECD data for European countries. Social disparities are greatest in France, where the enrollment rate for children under three years of age is 43 percentage points higher among the top income tertile than among the bottom tertile. The gap is also significant in Switzerland (37percentage points), Ireland (25 percentage points), and the Netherlands (24 percentage points). In Germany, the difference is only about 8 percentage points.
"The problem is not primarily a lack of willingness on the part of the parents. Many disadvantaged families actually want childcare for their child. However, they are held back by a lack of available places, excessive costs, and complicated application processes," says ifo education researcher Henning Hermes. The gaps are smallest in the Nordic countries and in several Central and Eastern European countries. For children between the ages of three and five, the authors show much smaller disparities, which nevertheless persist in most countries.
The authors identify the shortage of childcare places as the biggest obstacle, which is closely linked to staff shortages and the comparatively low pay of early childhood educators. This is compounded by the costs, complicated and inconsistent application processes, and a lack of information. Up to a quarter of low-income households report unmet childcare needs for financial reasons. "In countries such as the Netherlands or Ireland, a childcare place costs more than one-fifth of the average income of dual-earner couples. As a consequence, the very children who would benefit most from early care systematically miss out," says Simon Wiederhold from the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), a co-author of the article.
The authors identify six approaches policymakers should adopt. First, more childcare places should be created, particularly in areas where children from disadvantaged families have been underserved up to now. Second, they call for better pay and more attractive working conditions for staff. Third, they advocate centralized, standardized application processes, coupled with the long-run goal of making childcare free of charge. Fourth, they recommend actively informing families and providing them with personalized assistance, for example through social services or pediatricians. Fifth, digital, multilingual support tools should be expanded. And sixth, they call for expansion plans that take demographic change more strongly into account.
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This article is based on OECD data on childcare through 2023 and compares trends since 2010. The team of authors consists of Henning Hermes (ifo Institute & LMU Munich), Philipp Lergetporer (TUM Campus Heilbronn), Frauke Peter (DZHW), and Simon Wiederhold (IWH & MLU Halle-Wittenberg). It draws on data from the OECD report "Reducing Inequalities by Investing in Early Childhood Education and Care" (2025). The study compares the enrollment rates for children from the top and bottom income tertiles.
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Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2026-09-22/children-poorer-families-are-far-less-likely-attend-childcare
[Category: ThinkTank]
Hudson Institute Issues Commentary: AI's Threat to China's Control
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary to the Wall Street Journal:
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Sep 21, 2026
Wall Street Journal
AI's Threat to China's Control
Artificial intelligence isn't very intelligent if its knowledge base is lies and propaganda.
Walter Russell Mead
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As artificial intelligence reshapes the world, it is making its presence felt in high-level diplomacy. After meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary to the Wall Street Journal: * * * Sep 21, 2026 Wall Street Journal AI's Threat to China's Control Artificial intelligence isn't very intelligent if its knowledge base is lies and propaganda. Walter Russell Mead - As artificial intelligence reshapes the world, it is making its presence felt in high-level diplomacy. After meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent toldjournalists that the world's two AI superpowers discussed establishing a channel for communication over AI developments with national-security implications.
This is good news, but deep cooperation between the two countries will be difficult to build.
On AI as on so much else, Washington and Beijing see similar problems through different lenses. Both sides seek the military and economic advantages AI can bring, but both also worry about the job losses, economic turmoil and potential catastrophes the new technology could unleash.
Chinese officials, however, will be focused on a topic many Americans haven't thought much about: the existential threat AI could present to communist rule.
Read in the Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/opinion/ais-threat-to-chinas-control-8d7d9966).
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Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/ais-threat-chinas-control-walter-russell-mead
[Category: ThinkTank]
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Sep 21, 2026
Wall Street Journal
AI's Threat to China's Control
Artificial intelligence isn't very intelligent if its knowledge base is lies and propaganda.
Walter Russell Mead
-
As artificial intelligence reshapes the world, it is making its presence felt in high-level diplomacy. After meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- Hudson Institute, a research organization that says it promotes leadership for a secure, free and prosperous future, issued the following commentary to the Wall Street Journal: * * * Sep 21, 2026 Wall Street Journal AI's Threat to China's Control Artificial intelligence isn't very intelligent if its knowledge base is lies and propaganda. Walter Russell Mead - As artificial intelligence reshapes the world, it is making its presence felt in high-level diplomacy. After meeting with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng in New York Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent toldjournalists that the world's two AI superpowers discussed establishing a channel for communication over AI developments with national-security implications.
This is good news, but deep cooperation between the two countries will be difficult to build.
On AI as on so much else, Washington and Beijing see similar problems through different lenses. Both sides seek the military and economic advantages AI can bring, but both also worry about the job losses, economic turmoil and potential catastrophes the new technology could unleash.
Chinese officials, however, will be focused on a topic many Americans haven't thought much about: the existential threat AI could present to communist rule.
Read in the Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/opinion/ais-threat-to-chinas-control-8d7d9966).
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Original text here: https://www.hudson.org/foreign-policy/ais-threat-chinas-control-walter-russell-mead
[Category: ThinkTank]
Heritage Secures Withdrawal of Shareholder Proposal Following Oracle's Agreement to Improve Sustainability Disclosures
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- The Heritage Foundation issued the following news release:
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Heritage Secures Withdrawal of Shareholder Proposal Following Oracle's Agreement to Improve Sustainability Disclosures
Sept. 22, 2026
WASHINGTON - The Heritage Foundation announced today that Oracle has agreed to add new language to its public sustainability reporting after Heritage raised concerns about whether the company evaluates its sustainability initiatives using traditional business measures such as expected value and return on investment (ROI).
The Heritage Foundation, an Oracle shareholder, submitted ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- The Heritage Foundation issued the following news release: * * * Heritage Secures Withdrawal of Shareholder Proposal Following Oracle's Agreement to Improve Sustainability Disclosures Sept. 22, 2026 WASHINGTON - The Heritage Foundation announced today that Oracle has agreed to add new language to its public sustainability reporting after Heritage raised concerns about whether the company evaluates its sustainability initiatives using traditional business measures such as expected value and return on investment (ROI). The Heritage Foundation, an Oracle shareholder, submitteda proposal requesting that the company provide a report assessing the degree to which sustainability, ESG, and net-zero commitments are made based on ROI and expected value metrics.
Following good-faith negotiations, Oracle agreed to include new language in its online Environmental and Social Impact Report. The new disclosure clarifies that Oracle believes "ROI and expected value may be relevant inputs" but also cites "cost, feasibility, risk, reliability, resiliency, customer demand, regulatory requirements, strategic fit, contractual structure, data quality, auditability and long-term business value" as "appropriate measures for decisions involving customer commitments, compliance obligations, power reliability, water-stress constraints, supplier engagement, emissions reporting, market access, or other sustainability initiatives." Prior relevant disclosures had not referenced expected value or ROI.
Stefan Padfield, principal of The Heritage Foundation's American Investor Initiative, advocates for a neutral approach to corporate decision-making that minimizes political considerations.
"Improving transparency of ESG-related decision-making is one of the ways we do that, particularly when it comes to the role of expected value and return on investment."
Heritage commends Oracle for adding transparency to this issue. The change gives shareholders and other stakeholders a clearer view of how the company considers ROI and expected value when making sustainability-related decisions.
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Original text here: https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-secures-withdrawal-shareholder-proposal-following-oracles-agreement-improve
[Category: ThinkTank]
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Heritage Secures Withdrawal of Shareholder Proposal Following Oracle's Agreement to Improve Sustainability Disclosures
Sept. 22, 2026
WASHINGTON - The Heritage Foundation announced today that Oracle has agreed to add new language to its public sustainability reporting after Heritage raised concerns about whether the company evaluates its sustainability initiatives using traditional business measures such as expected value and return on investment (ROI).
The Heritage Foundation, an Oracle shareholder, submitted ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- The Heritage Foundation issued the following news release: * * * Heritage Secures Withdrawal of Shareholder Proposal Following Oracle's Agreement to Improve Sustainability Disclosures Sept. 22, 2026 WASHINGTON - The Heritage Foundation announced today that Oracle has agreed to add new language to its public sustainability reporting after Heritage raised concerns about whether the company evaluates its sustainability initiatives using traditional business measures such as expected value and return on investment (ROI). The Heritage Foundation, an Oracle shareholder, submitteda proposal requesting that the company provide a report assessing the degree to which sustainability, ESG, and net-zero commitments are made based on ROI and expected value metrics.
Following good-faith negotiations, Oracle agreed to include new language in its online Environmental and Social Impact Report. The new disclosure clarifies that Oracle believes "ROI and expected value may be relevant inputs" but also cites "cost, feasibility, risk, reliability, resiliency, customer demand, regulatory requirements, strategic fit, contractual structure, data quality, auditability and long-term business value" as "appropriate measures for decisions involving customer commitments, compliance obligations, power reliability, water-stress constraints, supplier engagement, emissions reporting, market access, or other sustainability initiatives." Prior relevant disclosures had not referenced expected value or ROI.
Stefan Padfield, principal of The Heritage Foundation's American Investor Initiative, advocates for a neutral approach to corporate decision-making that minimizes political considerations.
"Improving transparency of ESG-related decision-making is one of the ways we do that, particularly when it comes to the role of expected value and return on investment."
Heritage commends Oracle for adding transparency to this issue. The change gives shareholders and other stakeholders a clearer view of how the company considers ROI and expected value when making sustainability-related decisions.
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Original text here: https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-secures-withdrawal-shareholder-proposal-following-oracles-agreement-improve
[Category: ThinkTank]
Florida Continues to Take Top Spot in Heritage's 2026 Education Freedom Report Card
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- The Heritage Foundation issued the following news release:
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Florida Continues to Take Top Spot in Heritage's 2026 Education Freedom Report Card
Sept. 21, 2026
WASHINGTON -- For the fifth year in a row, Florida takes the top spot in the Heritage Foundation's newly released 2026 Education Freedom Report Card (https://www.heritage.org/educationreportcard/), which ranks how well states advance education freedom for K-12 students and families.
Heritage's Education Freedom Report Card evaluates states based on several criteria, including active education choice programs, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- The Heritage Foundation issued the following news release: * * * Florida Continues to Take Top Spot in Heritage's 2026 Education Freedom Report Card Sept. 21, 2026 WASHINGTON -- For the fifth year in a row, Florida takes the top spot in the Heritage Foundation's newly released 2026 Education Freedom Report Card (https://www.heritage.org/educationreportcard/), which ranks how well states advance education freedom for K-12 students and families. Heritage's Education Freedom Report Card evaluates states based on several criteria, including active education choice programs,academic transparency, teacher freedom, the return on investment of the state's education spending, and civics education.
Florida placed first overall, followed by Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, and Iowa, jumping 34 spots in civics over last year.
Louisiana, which ranked sixth, topped the civics education category in part due to policies such as requiring high school students to complete a full-year civics course and to pass a civics or citizenship test to graduate.
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode Island rounded out the bottom of the list, with Maine remaining in last place for education freedom.
Heritage Foundation president Dr. Kevin Roberts made the following statement:
"In the backdrop of the Trump administration working to wind down the U.S. Department of Education, states like Florida and Iowa have met the moment by reclaiming more education responsibilities, which our nation's Founders always intended, and providing families with more education choice.
"More states need to provide families with K-12 education savings account programs that allow them to choose learning environments that align with their values and work best for their children."
With only 22 percent of U.S. eighth-graders proficient in U.S. civics, Jonathan Butcher, acting director for Heritage's Center for Education Policy, added that states face more urgency to adopt policies that help students understand America and Western civilization:
"Lawmakers must put a renewed focus on civics instruction. In his first inaugural address, George Washington said our Republican model of government was an 'experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.' This experiment will fail if we do not help the next generation understand the fundamental pairings of faith and virtue, as well as freedom and responsibility. These are the traits held by civic-minded individuals.
"Educators have a responsibility not only to impart skills such as reading, addition, and subtraction but to teach knowledge. Rich content--in civics, as well as math, reading, science, and other core subjects--is essential to helping students succeed in school and in life."
Learn more about the Education Freedom Report Card here (https://www.heritage.org/educationreportcard/).
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Original text here: https://www.heritage.org/press/florida-continues-take-top-spot-heritages-2026-education-freedom-report-card
[Category: ThinkTank]
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Florida Continues to Take Top Spot in Heritage's 2026 Education Freedom Report Card
Sept. 21, 2026
WASHINGTON -- For the fifth year in a row, Florida takes the top spot in the Heritage Foundation's newly released 2026 Education Freedom Report Card (https://www.heritage.org/educationreportcard/), which ranks how well states advance education freedom for K-12 students and families.
Heritage's Education Freedom Report Card evaluates states based on several criteria, including active education choice programs, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- The Heritage Foundation issued the following news release: * * * Florida Continues to Take Top Spot in Heritage's 2026 Education Freedom Report Card Sept. 21, 2026 WASHINGTON -- For the fifth year in a row, Florida takes the top spot in the Heritage Foundation's newly released 2026 Education Freedom Report Card (https://www.heritage.org/educationreportcard/), which ranks how well states advance education freedom for K-12 students and families. Heritage's Education Freedom Report Card evaluates states based on several criteria, including active education choice programs,academic transparency, teacher freedom, the return on investment of the state's education spending, and civics education.
Florida placed first overall, followed by Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, and Iowa, jumping 34 spots in civics over last year.
Louisiana, which ranked sixth, topped the civics education category in part due to policies such as requiring high school students to complete a full-year civics course and to pass a civics or citizenship test to graduate.
Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, and Rhode Island rounded out the bottom of the list, with Maine remaining in last place for education freedom.
Heritage Foundation president Dr. Kevin Roberts made the following statement:
"In the backdrop of the Trump administration working to wind down the U.S. Department of Education, states like Florida and Iowa have met the moment by reclaiming more education responsibilities, which our nation's Founders always intended, and providing families with more education choice.
"More states need to provide families with K-12 education savings account programs that allow them to choose learning environments that align with their values and work best for their children."
With only 22 percent of U.S. eighth-graders proficient in U.S. civics, Jonathan Butcher, acting director for Heritage's Center for Education Policy, added that states face more urgency to adopt policies that help students understand America and Western civilization:
"Lawmakers must put a renewed focus on civics instruction. In his first inaugural address, George Washington said our Republican model of government was an 'experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.' This experiment will fail if we do not help the next generation understand the fundamental pairings of faith and virtue, as well as freedom and responsibility. These are the traits held by civic-minded individuals.
"Educators have a responsibility not only to impart skills such as reading, addition, and subtraction but to teach knowledge. Rich content--in civics, as well as math, reading, science, and other core subjects--is essential to helping students succeed in school and in life."
Learn more about the Education Freedom Report Card here (https://www.heritage.org/educationreportcard/).
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Original text here: https://www.heritage.org/press/florida-continues-take-top-spot-heritages-2026-education-freedom-report-card
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center on Budget & Policy Priorities: Trump, Congressional Republican Agenda Has Harmed Rural Communities
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued the following report:
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Trump, Congressional Republican Agenda Has Harmed Rural Communities
September 22, 2026 | Gbenga Ajilore
Policies adopted by the Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress have adversely impacted individuals and families living in rural communities, along with millions of other people across the country. Policies that supporters claimed would advance rural prosperity, such as the harmful 2025 Republican reconciliation law, the Administration's chaotic and haphazard tariff regime, and its ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued the following report: * * * Trump, Congressional Republican Agenda Has Harmed Rural Communities September 22, 2026 | Gbenga Ajilore Policies adopted by the Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress have adversely impacted individuals and families living in rural communities, along with millions of other people across the country. Policies that supporters claimed would advance rural prosperity, such as the harmful 2025 Republican reconciliation law, the Administration's chaotic and haphazard tariff regime, and itsviolent and costly immigrant deportation and detention campaign, have instead made life more difficult for rural residents.
[View table in the link at bottom.]
The reconciliation law cut nearly $200 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces. At the same time, it extended the expiring 2017 tax cuts, which provide the biggest gains to the wealthy, but did not extend the expiring premium tax credit enhancements, which helped families afford marketplace health coverage.[1] Considering the law as a whole, households with the lowest incomes will end up worse off -- they will lose significantly more from the cuts in health care and food assistance than they will gain from the tax cuts -- while the wealthiest households will be better off, according to the Congressional Budget Office.[2]
The reconciliation law hurts rural communities disproportionately because a larger share of rural residents have low incomes and experience material hardship than urban residents; rural residents also are more likely to receive health coverage through Medicaid and food assistance through SNAP. Fully 85 percent of the nation's counties that are persistently poor have entirely rural populations.[3] Households in rural areas are over-represented at the lower end of the income spectrum and under-represented at the top. (See Figure 1.) The reconciliation law -- with its tax cuts tilted to the top and its cuts in Medicaid and SNAP -- will worsen these inequities.
The reconciliation law is being implemented in an environment where prices are rising due to the Administration's tariffs and the war with Iran. Thus far in 2026, overall inflation has outpaced average wage growth, and both inflation measures -- the Consumer Price Index and the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index -- are over 3 percent, well above the Federal Reserve's 2 percent target.[4] Inflation especially hurts households with low or moderate incomes, many of whom are already struggling with the reconciliation law's cuts to health care and food assistance. A study by the Budget Lab at Yale found that together, the reconciliation law and the tariffs will leave households with incomes in the bottom 70 percent worse off.[5] (See Figure 2.)
[View table in the link at bottom.]
Adding to the damage from higher prices and cuts in food assistance and health care, rural communities are also being harmed by the Administration's cruel and violent immigration deportation and detention campaign. People who are immigrants play an essential role in mitigating rural population loss, strengthening rural labor markets, and revitalizing civic life in rural communities.
Recent Tax Changes Will Do Little for Rural Residents
The reconciliation law extends the expiring individual tax cuts in the 2017 Trump tax law and adds new tax cuts on top, such as increasing the amount that heirs of the largest estates can receive tax-free and adding highly skewed corporate tax breaks. Households with incomes in the top 1 percent will receive tax cuts over three times the size of those for households with incomes in the bottom 60 percent, measured as a share of after-tax income. And the 1.2 million households with annual incomes above $1 million (roughly the top 0.6 percent) will receive more total tax cuts than the 127 million households with incomes below $100,000.[6]
This skewed distribution means that rural communities, which generally have lower incomes than urban areas, will benefit relatively little from the tax cuts -- and this is before taking the impact of the SNAP and Medicaid cuts into account.
Republicans in Congress and supporters of the law argue that certain tax provisions in the reconciliation law benefit rural areas, in particular its tax breaks related to the estate tax and "Opportunity Zones."[7] But those arguments don't hold up under scrutiny.
Claims that the law's extension and expansion of previous cuts in the estate tax will help family farmers are highly misleading. Under prior law, only 0.3 percent of farm households or 141 estates owed any estate tax, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).[8] And no small farm or small business (those with farm or business assets of $5 million or less) paid any estate tax in 2023, the Tax Policy Center estimated.[9] The reconciliation law increased the amount that a wealthy couple can exempt from the estate tax -- and thus pass on to their heirs tax free -- to $30 million. That's $1.7 million more than the exemption would have been under a simple extension of the 2017 tax law. As a result of this change, the number of estates owing tax will shrink further, thereby further enriching wealthy families without any added benefit for the vast majority of farm households.[10]
Similarly, the reconciliation law's changes to the Opportunity Zone tax break likely won't help rural areas or residents significantly. As established under the 2017 tax law, the tax break lets investors defer capital gains taxes by "rolling" those gains into funds that invest in designated low-income areas, called Opportunity Zones; investors who keep their investments in the funds for at least five years also get a 10 percent capital gains exemption (plus extra tax breaks if the investments are held longer). Under the 2025 reconciliation law, investors who put their gains in funds that primarily invest in rural census tracts get a 30 percent capital gains exemption. They also benefit from weakened requirements to improve rural property: in general, Opportunity Zone funds must "substantially improve" -- that is, make major investments in -- assets they buy, like real estate, but funds that primarily invest in rural areas only have to invest half as much in asset improvements as is required in other Opportunity Zones.
Adding extra benefits for investment in rural census tracts does not fix the Opportunity Zone tax break's major flaws, which result from its failure to target investment to the places and people that need the most help.[11] Because the incentive is structured as a capital gains tax break, the largest benefits will continue to go to the projects with the highest financial returns -- likely in rapidly growing, primarily urban areas.
This is consistent with research on the 2017 law's Opportunity Zone provision. While investment did increase in designated zones,[12] much of the investment went to census tracts that had greater pre-existing private investment, rather than higher-need areas with the lowest-income residents.[13]
SNAP Cuts, Cost Shifts Could End SNAP Entirely in Rural Areas
The reconciliation law's cuts in food assistance will increase poverty, food insecurity, and hunger, including among children -- and the impact could be particularly severe in rural areas. Some 8.1 million rural residents received food assistance through SNAP in an average month of fiscal year 2024.[14] The share of residents receiving SNAP is higher in rural areas (13.8 percent) than in urban areas (11.4 percent).[15]
While many of the law's SNAP cuts are still phasing in, SNAP participation nationwide has already fallen by roughly 5 million people (12 percent) between the law's July 2025 enactment and May 2026 (the latest month available as of the date of this report). We estimate that well over 1.5 million fewer children are receiving SNAP nationwide, based on available data from 25 states.[16]
The reconciliation law takes away food assistance, in part, by expanding SNAP's harsh work requirement, which previously applied to most non-elderly, non-disabled adults without children in their homes but now also applies to adults with children aged 14 and older and adults ages 55 to 64. The law also ends exemptions for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and young people who recently aged out of foster care. People subject to the requirement can only receive food benefits for three months in a 36-month period unless they can document they are working at least 20 hours per week or can prove, through a red-tape-laden process, that they qualify for an exemption (such as a physical limitation that prevents them from working).[17]
Meeting work requirements can be especially difficult in rural communities, where unemployment is generally higher, jobs are often farther away and harder to reach (particularly since public transportation tends to be less robust), and high-speed internet access is more limited.[18] Plus, the reconciliation law makes it harder for states to exempt a community from SNAP work requirements if jobs there are scarce; while volunteering counts toward the requirement, volunteer opportunities often are less available and accessible in rural areas.[19]
In addition, the most common area of employment in rural areas is the service sector,[20] where work hours are often uncertain and volatile.[21] Rural workers risk losing food assistance if they cannot get enough work hours consistently to meet the law's stringent requirements.
Another piece of the reconciliation law, the requirement that most states pay part of the cost of SNAP benefits starting in 2027, will also adversely affect rural states. The amount states will be required to pay will depend on their "error rate," which measures the accuracy of each state's eligibility and benefit determinations and largely reflects unintentional mistakes by state agencies and households. We estimate that states will face a collective bill of roughly $9 billion the first year this requirement is in effect, with nearly half of states required to pay $100 million or more to sustain SNAP.[22]
States that are unable or unwilling to pay these costs could end their SNAP programs entirely, leaving children, seniors, workers, people with disabilities, parents, and veterans without access to food assistance. Conservative-leaning states and those with fewer resources -- including many states with large rural populations -- may be more likely than other states to end or sharply scale back their SNAP programs as a result of these new cost burdens.
A large decline in the number of SNAP participants due to work requirements and cost shifts would also hurt the retailers that serve them. These retailers range from national retail chains to small, locally owned businesses such as private groceries, convenience stores, and farm stands. For locally owned small businesses, SNAP can be an important revenue source -- particularly in higher-poverty areas, where SNAP purchases can account for a significant share of a retailer's total sales. One analysis found that rural counties make up 77 percent of all counties where retailers are at greatest risk of harm from SNAP cuts due to their high SNAP participation and low number of SNAP retailers.[23]
SNAP plays an especially important role in the economy during downturns. Every $1 in additional spending on SNAP benefits in a slowing economy generates $1.54 in economic activity as households use their benefits to shop at local grocery stores and supermarkets, spurring new spending throughout local economies across the country and supporting jobs throughout the food supply chain.[24] A weakened SNAP program will be less able to support rural economies in the next recession.
Health Care Cuts Will Hurt Rural Residents and Hospitals
Rural residents need health coverage that they can use to access the care they need, when they need it, from the full range of providers in their communities -- including primary care doctors at community clinics and rural hospitals. Coverage gives enrollees agency to choose their providers and stabilizes the full provider network by paying providers when people access care. Coverage is also crucial for the financial viability of rural hospitals. Hospitals in the most vulnerable communities, like those experiencing persistent poverty in rural counties, are more likely to experience financial distress.[25]
Uninsured rates in rural areas have fallen substantially under the ACA, as millions of rural residents have obtained coverage through Medicaid (including the ACA Medicaid expansion) and the ACA marketplaces. More than 12 million rural residents -- including 47 percent of children in rural areas -- receive health care through Medicaid, which financed nearly half of all births in rural areas in 2023.[26] Just under 3 million marketplace enrollees in the 32 states using HealthCare.gov in 2026 lived in rural areas.[27] The reconciliation law, however, imposes a harsh new work requirement that takes Medicaid away from adults who can't meet its conditions or paperwork burdens, including people who are between jobs and people who should be exempt but get caught in bureaucratic red tape. It also creates incentives for states to further restrict access to health coverage and care.[28]
In addition, the law makes many immigrants with lawful statuses who previously were eligible for Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), ACA marketplace coverage, and Medicare ineligible for coverage through these programs, including refugees, asylees, and others with humanitarian protections.
Overall, rural hospitals may be particularly vulnerable to Medicaid cuts because they tend to rely more on Medicaid funding, operate with thinner margins, and face greater risk of closure.[29]
The ACA's Medicaid expansion has not only improved health coverage in rural areas but also provided a lifeline for rural hospitals and other providers, keeping them afloat by reducing the uncompensated costs they incur from serving uninsured residents.[30]
Now all of that is at risk due to the severe cuts in the reconciliation law. Like the law's SNAP work requirements, its Medicaid work requirements will disproportionately harm rural workers and families in states that have adopted the expansion. Unemployment is higher in rural areas and jobs are often farther away and harder to reach,[31] making it more difficult for rural residents to meet the work requirement.[32]
The reconciliation law includes a five-year Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) that's meant to mitigate the harm to rural communities from the health care cuts. But the program's $50 billion in one-time funding pales in comparison to the permanent Medicaid cuts, which total more than $900 billion over ten years -- about $137 billion of which will impact rural areas, according to KFF.[33]
While some states are using RHTP funds in thoughtful ways, implementation is proving difficult and the money is not reaching some of the most at-risk communities.[34] For instance, states are limited in how they can use the funds to support struggling rural hospitals.[35] To meet the terms of the grant, some states are cutting services such as dialysis or labor and delivery or converting hospitals into Rural Emergency Hospitals, which offer no in-patient care.[36] Ultimately, the fund will neither replace affordable health care nor offset the large-scale reductions in federal funding from the reconciliation law's other provisions.[37]
On top of enacting the harmful reconciliation law, Congress failed to renew the premium tax credit enhancements that helped working families afford marketplace coverage in recent years. Their expiration at the end of 2025 has driven up families' premium costs across the country.
Many people have shifted towards skimpier plans with lower premiums but are now facing higher deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs.[38] Many others have dropped coverage entirely as unaffordable: in 2026, 1.2 million fewer people selected marketplace plans than in 2025.[39] Enrollment fell more than twice as much in rural areas -- by 10 percent (roughly 300,000 people) -- as in non-rural areas, which declined by 4 percent.[40] (See Figure 3.) The enrollment declines have only grown during 2026, to nearly 3 million so far.[41]
[View table in the link at bottom.]
Tariffs, Iran War Adding to Economic Pressure on Rural Areas
The Trump Administration's sweeping tariffs have imposed large burdens on rural residents, including farmers and small businesses. Research shows that U.S. businesses have borne around 90 percent of the tariffs, some of which they have passed on to consumers.[42] Tariffs are harming the agricultural sector of the economy, raising the prices that farmers must pay for inputs like fertilizer and farm equipment made with imported steel and aluminum.
Tariffs have been an ongoing focus of this Administration. On April 2, 2025, the President announced a wide-ranging tariff scheme imposing a minimum tariff rate of 10 percent on over 70 countries. When the market reacted negatively, he postponed many of these tariffs and backtracked on several others. This was indicative of how tariffs would proceed through the rest of 2025. Adding to the volatility, the President repeatedly threatened tariffs in response to outside issues, such as disputes over control of Greenland.[43] On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court struck down the President's use of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act to impose tariffs in April 2025, but the President has continued imposing broadly similar tariffs using different authorities (though these moves face further legal challenges).[44]
Further, the war in Iran is pushing up prices for already strained farmers, with higher costs for fertilizer and energy on top of the tariffs. Gas prices have been rising throughout 2026 due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Rural households are disproportionately harmed by higher gas prices because they tend to have higher rates of vehicle ownership, longer commutes, and less access to public transit than urban households.[45] Diesel prices are going up as well, which impacts inputs like agricultural machinery. In addition, since one-third of the world's fertilizer supply goes through the Strait, its closure has also raised fertilizer prices. In short, the combination of the Administration's tariff policies and the Iran war is significantly driving up the cost of gas, food, and energy for rural families, as well as the rest of the country.
Anti-Immigrant Campaign Weakens Rural Communities
The Trump Administration is relentlessly pursuing a multi-tiered effort aimed at reducing the number of immigrants in the United States. This has included sweeping efforts to curtail lawful immigration through travel bans,[46] the decimation of the refugee program,[47] and the systematic termination of Temporary Protected Status and other forms of humanitarian protection.[48] The Administration has also poured billions into a large and often violent detention and deportation apparatus that is separating families[49] and violating the legal and constitutional rights of many immigrants[50] and others[51] who get swept up by this cruel dragnet.
In addition, the Administration has engaged in a variety of policies and actions aimed at discouraging or otherwise obstructing immigrants and their families from accessing vital benefits they need and for which they are eligible. Agencies have shared personal data collected on benefit applications and tax forms with the Department of Homeland Security to support its mass deportation efforts;[52] they also have sought to restrict access to vital services that, for decades, both Republican and Democratic administrations have interpreted as open to eligible members of the public regardless of immigration status.[53] These actions threaten to undo immigrants' many contributions to rural economies and communities, alongside other harmful impacts.
People who are immigrants have played a key role in repopulating and revitalizing rural communities, where population growth began slowing in the early 1990s and population actually declined in the 2010s.[54] Annual deaths in nonmetro counties have exceeded annual births since 2017,[55] so any population growth (or reduction in population decline) must come from more people moving into rural communities -- including immigrants -- than moving out. This has been the case in the 2020s, where the nonmetro population has been increasing due to migration.[56] One study found that 78 percent of the rural places where population declined starting in 1990 would have experienced a greater decline if not for immigrants.[57] Another study found that in most rural counties with positive net annual migration between 2022 and 2024, it was driven entirely by newly arriving immigrants.[58]
Immigrants' positive impact on rural areas goes much further than mitigating population loss.[59] Immigrants help fill labor shortages, bring skills needed in rural labor markets, and contribute to the local economy by spending, starting new businesses, and paying taxes. Immigrants make up the largest share of employment in the construction, agriculture, and accommodation and food services industries, which are prevalent in rural areas; more than 1 in 4 rural agriculture workers -- 28 percent of them -- are immigrants.[60] In addition, immigrants are an important part of the rural health care workforce, which faces severe shortages. Immigrants account for 14 percent of physicians in rural areas, well above their 5 percent share of the overall rural workforce.[61] This contribution will become increasingly vital as the rural population ages and the demand for health care workers rises.
Beyond strengthening the rural workforce, many immigrants who move into rural communities open businesses and revitalize "main streets." Immigrants are more likely than U.S.-born workers to own businesses and are more likely to own "main street" businesses (storefront institutions like grocery stores, nail salons, gas stations, and restaurants).[62] Immigrants also contribute to the civic life of rural places, as well as to community safety.[63]
For rural areas, the Administration's anti-immigrant campaign will likely mean fewer workers, fewer people starting new businesses, and fewer people supporting local economies and adding to local communities.
* * *
Federal Workforce Cuts Undermine Service for Rural Residents
Upon taking office, the Trump Administration began rapidly cutting the federal workforce without congressional approval, causing disruptions and slowdowns in services ranging from repairing infrastructure damage from hurricanes to removing lead contamination from public schools to answering questions from Social Security beneficiaries. This severe retrenchment in federal capacity -- generally unaccompanied by any clear plan on how to maintain the programs and services that these workers administer and that Congress continues to support -- has been radical in both size and speed.a And rural areas are feeling some of the biggest impacts.
A prominent example is the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), with agencies and programs focused on serving rural households and farming communities. USDA, excluding the Forest Service, lost over 25 percent of its workforce between January 2025 and May 2026, and the Forest Service has lost 8 percent of its employees over the past 12 months, after accounting for seasonal adjustments.b USDA expects these staffing losses to grow in response to the agency's reorganization plan, which is forcing thousands of employees to relocate across the country or leave.c
In addition, Rural Development, the USDA mission area serving rural communities, lost 38 percent of its workforce in the Administration's first 12 months.d The first Trump Administration downgraded the position of Undersecretary for Rural Development, suggesting a lack of support for the mission area as a whole.e
In federal agencies, the recent closure of local field offices and loss of staff who administer programs and interact with residents have harmed rural communities and residents.f At the Social Security Administration, for example, staff losses have undermined customer service, contributing to long phone wait times and lengthy waits for appointments.g These problems pose particularly large challenges for elderly rural residents who have struggled with the agency's shift to online service delivery.h
a Kiran Rachamallu and Devin O' Connor, "Administration's Radical Personnel Cuts Bypassed Congress and Lacked Transparency, Obscuring impact on Public Services," CBPP, January 15, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/administrations-radical-personnel-cuts-bypassed-congress-and-lacked.
b Office of Personnel Management, "Federal Workforce Data," accessed on July 20, 2026, https://data.opm.gov/.
c Jory Heckman, "USDA expects 'significant number' of staff facing relocation to leave their jobs," Federal News Network, July 2, 2026, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2026/07/usda-expects-significant-number-of-staff-facing-relocation-to-leave-their-jobs/.
d Office of Personnel Management, op. cit.
e National Association of Counties, "Administration Eliminates USDA Rural Development Undersecretary," May 15, 2017, https://www.naco.org/articles/administration-eliminates-usda-rural-development-undersecretary .
f Rebekah Alvey, "Rural Development Experts Warn Against USDA Cuts at Local Offices," Civil Eats, September 19, 2025, https://civileats.com/2025/09/19/rural-development-experts-warn-against-usda-cuts-at-local-offices/.
g Kathleen Romig, "New Data Show Social Security Staff Cuts Harm Service Delivery in Every State," CBPP, June 3, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/new-data-show-social-security-staff-cuts-harm-service-delivery-in-every-state.
h Barbara Butrica and Jonathan Schwabish, "Social Security Office Closures Will Hurt Rural and Tribal Communities," Urban Institute, March 24, 2025, https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/social-security-office-closures-will-hurt-rural-and-tribal-communities.
* * *
End Notes
[1] Brendan Duke, "Republican Megabill Trades Essential Support to Low-Income People for Skewed Tax Cuts," CBPP, updated February 11, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/republican-megabill-trades-essential-support-to-low-income-people-for-skewed.
[2] Congressional Budget Office (CBO), "How the 2025 Reconciliation Act (Public Law 119-21) Will Affect the Distribution of Resources Available to Households," August 11, 2025, https://www.cbo.gov/interactive/2025-reconciliation-act.
[3] Tracey Farrigan, "Rural Poverty & Well-Being," USDA, February 13, 2026, https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-population/rural-poverty-well-being. This analysis "defined counties as being persistently poor if 20 percent or more of their populations were living in poverty based on the 1980, 1990, and 2000 decennial censuses and 2007-11 ACS 5-year estimates."
[4] Malik Woullard and Gbenga Ajilore, "Inflation: Key Measures to Understand," CBPP, January 16, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/inflation-key-measures-to-understand.
[5] Yale Budget Lab, "Combined Distributional Effects of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and of Tariffs," updated December 2025, https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/combined-distributional-effects-one-big-beautiful-bill-act-and-tariffs-0.
[6] Samantha Jacoby, Chuck Marr, and Kris Cox, "Republican Megabill Tax Provisions Are Skewed to the Rich, Fail to Deliver for Families, and Are Fiscally Irresponsible," CBPP, December 17, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/republican-megabill-tax-provisions-are-skewed-to-the-rich-fail-to-deliver-for.
[7] House Committee on Ways and Means, "Working Family Tax Cuts Keeps Family Farming Alive and Growing in America," March 20, 2026, https://waysandmeans.house.gov/2026/03/20/working-families-tax-cuts-keeps-family-farming-alive-and-growing-in-america/.
[8] USDA, "Federal Tax Issues - Federal Estate Taxes," February 9, 2026, https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/federal-tax-issues/federal-estate-taxes.
[9] Tax Policy Center, "Who Pays the Estate Tax?" January 2024, https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/who-pays-estate-tax.
[10] Samantha Jacoby, "House Republican Tax Bill Extends - and Expands - Costly Tax Breaks for the Wealthy," CBPP, June 4, 2025, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/house-republican-tax-bill-extends-and-expands-costly-tax-breaks-for-the-wealthy.
[11] Samantha Jacoby, "Potential Flaws of Opportunity Zones Loom, as Do Risks of Large-Scale Tax Avoidance," CBPP, January 11, 2019, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/potential-flaws-of-opportunity-zones-loom-as-do-risks-of-large-scale-tax.
[12] David Wessel, "How did the One Big Beautiful Bill Act change Opportunity Zones?" Brookings, July 8, 2025, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-did-the-one-big-beautiful-bill-act-change-opportunity-zones/
[13] Kevin Corinth et al., "The Targeting of Place-Based Policies: The New Markets Tax Credit Versus Opportunity Zones," NBER Working Paper 33414, January 2025, https://www.nber.org/papers/w33414.
[14] Ben Ward and Mia Monkovic, "Characteristics of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Households: Fiscal Year 2024," USDA, May 2026, https://www.fna.usda.gov/research/snap/characteristics-fy24.
[15] U.S. Census Bureau, "American Community Survey: S2201: Food Stamps/Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program," 2024, https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2024.S2201?q=s2201&g=010XXC0US_010XXH0US.
[16] Dottie Rosenbaum et al., "SNAP Tracker: People Are Losing Food Assistance as the Harmful 2025 Republican Reconciliation Law Is Implemented," CBPP, updated August 26, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-tracker-people-are-losing-food-assistance-as-the-republican-megabill.
[17] USDA, "SNAP Work Requirements," updated August 29, 2025, https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/work-requirements.
[18] Emma Parker-Newton, "Medicaid Work Requirements Undermine Rural Healthcare," National Health Law Program, April 7, 2025, https://healthlaw.org/resource/medicaid-work-requirements-undermine-rural-healthcare/.
[19] Jie Jenny Zou, "'Blindsided' Counties Struggle to Implement Trump's SNAP Work Rules," New York Focus, November 10, 2025, https://nysfocus.com/2025/11/10/trump-counties-snap-work-rules.
[20] Thomas Hertz, "Service industries account for the largest share of rural and urban employment," USDA, March 25, 2016, https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=78844.
[21] Elizabeth Ananat, Anna Gassman-Pines, and Olivia Howard, "Work requirements penalize workers in volatile occupations," Hamilton Project, May 22, 2025, https://www.hamiltonproject.org/publication/post/work-requirements-penalize-workers-in-volatile-occupations/.
[22] Katie Bergh and Joseph Llobrera, "States' First-Ever Bill for SNAP Benefits Could Cost Billions," CBPP, June 24, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/states-first-ever-bill-for-snap-benefits-could-cost-billions.
[23] Kyle Ross and Kennedy Andara, "SNAP Cuts Are Likely To Harm More Than 27,000 Retailers Nationwide," Center for American Progress, May 8, 2025, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/snap-cuts-are-likely-to-harm-more-than-27000-retailers-nationwide/.
[24] Diana Spahia, Carla Sinclair, and Stephanie Rosoff, "Global Roots, Local Impact: A Research Review of How Immigrants Impact the Economies, Health, and Safety of their Communities," CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance, April 16, 2026, https://islg.cuny.edu/resources/global-roots-local-impact.
[25] Tyler L. Malone, George H. Pink, and George M. Holmes, "An updated model of rural hospital financial distress," Journal of Rural Health, October 3, 2024, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jrh.12882.
[26] Scott Hulver et al., "5 Key Facts About Medicaid and Hospitals," KFF, March 5, 2025, https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/5-key-facts-about-medicaid-and-hospitals/.
[27] KFF, "HealthCare.gov Marketplace Plan Selections by Rural Status," 2025, https://www.kff.org/affordable-care-act/state-indicator/healthcare-gov-marketplace-plan-selections-by-rural-status-2/.
[28] Allie Gardner, "Proposed Medicaid Provider Tax Rule Will Further Cut Federal Medicaid Spending," CBPP, July 21, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/executive-action-watch?item=30710.
[29] Fredric Blavin, Michael Simpson, and Laura Skopec, "Rural Hospital Revenue Could Drop by $87 Billion over 10 Years Because of the Reconciliation Bill and Expiring Enhanced Tax Credits," Urban Institute, June 30, 2025, https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/rural-hospital-revenue-could-drop-87-billion-over-10-years-because-reconciliation-bill.
[30] Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, "Report to Congress and Medicaid and CHIP," Chapter 3, March 2024, https://www.macpac.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Chapter-3-Annual-Analysis-of-Medicaid-Disproportionate-Share-Hospital-Allotments-to-States.pdf.
[31] Parker-Newton, op. cit.
[32] CBPP, "How Medicaid Work Requirements Will Harm Rural Residents - And Communities," March 10, 2020, https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/how-medicaid-work-requirements-will-harm-rural-residents-and-communities.
[33] Zachary Levinson and Tricia Neuman, "A Closer Look at the $50 Billion Rural Health Fund in the New Reconciliation Law," KFF, August 4, 2025, https://www.kff.org/medicaid/a-closer-look-at-the-50-billion-rural-health-fund-in-the-new-reconciliation-law/.
[34] Tyler Dedrick, "At-Risk Communities Shortchanged by Rural Health Transformation Program, Research Shows," Daily Yonder, April 27, 2026, https://dailyyonder.com/at-risk-communities-shortchanged-by-rural-health-transformation-program-research-shows/2026/04/27/.
[35] Sarah Jane Tribble and Arielle Zionts, "Backed by Threat of Clawbacks, Feds Wield Tight Grip on $50B Rural Health Fund," KFF Health News, June 16, 2026, https://kffhealthnews.org/rural-health/rural-health-transformation-program-federal-cms-clawbacks-state-plans/.
[36] Michael Brady, "The $50B rural health transformation fund is pushing many hospitals to shrink," Healthcare Dive, June 24, 2026, https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/rural-health-transformation-fund-50-billion-push-hospitals-shrink/823206/.
[37] Allison Orris and Gbenga Ajilore, "Rural Health Fund Will Do Little to Offset Harm to Rural Providers in Republican Megabill," CBPP, September 26, 2025, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/rural-health-fund-will-do-little-to-offset-harm-to-rural-providers-in-republican-megabill.
[38] Jennifer Sullivan and Elizabeth Zhang, "Higher Marketplace Premiums Take a Toll on Enrollment and on Marketplace Enrollees," CBPP, May 18, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/higher-marketplace-premiums-take-a-toll-on-enrollment-and-on-marketplace-enrollees.
[39] Nicole Rapfogel, "New Data Show Marketplace Consumers Facing Higher Costs, Selecting Lower-Quality Coverage," CBPP, April 2, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/new-data-show-marketplace-consumers-facing-higher-costs-selecting-lower-quality-coverage.
[40] Author's calculations from Healthcare.gov database.
[41] Claire Heyison, "ACA Marketplace Enrollment Shrank in Nearly Every State After Premium Tax Credit Enhancements Expired," CBPP, July 20, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/aca-marketplace-enrollment-shrank-in-nearly-every-state-after-premium-tax-credit-enhancements.
[42] Mary Amiti et al., "Who is Paying for the 2025 U.S. Tariffs?" Liberty Street Economics, February 12, 2026, https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/02/who-is-paying-for-the-2025-u-s-tariffs/.
[43] Chad P. Brown, "Trump's trade war timeline 2.0: An up-to-date guide," Peterson Institute for International Economics, February 20, 2026, https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2025/trumps-trade-war-timeline-20-date-guide; Ana Swanson, "Trump Returns to a Familiar Role: Sowing Trade Chaos," New York Times, January 22, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/us/politics/trump-trade-chaos.html.
[44] Herb Scribner and Courtenay Brown, "Trump signals new tariffs plan. Here's how Section 122 works," Axios, February 20, 2026, https://www.axios.com/2026/02/20/trump-tariff-plan-section-122-trade-act; Kimberly Clausing and Maurice Obstfeld, "What the Supreme Court's tariff ruling changes, and what it doesn't," Peterson Institute for International Economics, February 23, 2026, https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2026/what-supreme-courts-tariff-ruling-changes-and-what-it-doesnt; Courtenay Brown, "Trump employs unused law in new tariff playbook," Axios, July 21, 2026, https://www.axios.com/2026/07/21/trump-tariffs-imports-canada.
[45] Alex Dorman, "The ripple of rising gas prices: Transportation burden, food prices, and rural communities," Center for Community Solutions, April 6, 2026, https://www.communitysolutions.com/resources/the-ripple-of-rising-gas-prices-transportation-burden-food-prices-and-rural-communities.
[46] U.S. Department of State, "Suspension of Visa Issuance to Foreign Nationals to Protect the Security of the United States," updated February 2, 2026, https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/suspension-of-visa-issuance-to-foreign-nationals-to-protect-the-security-of-the-united-states.html.
[47] Rumbidzai Muzirwa and Nikki Carrion, "Policies Affecting Refugees in the United States: Suspension of Admissions, Re-Vetting, and New Detention Authority," Global Refuge, March 10, 2026, Policies-Affecting-Refugees-in-the-United-States_Suspension-of-Admissions-Re-Vetting-and-New-Detention-Authority-1.pdf.
[48] Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, "Confusion and Worry Grow as Temporary Protected Status Set to Expire for Hundreds of Thousands," American Immigration Council, July 15, 2026, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/trump-administration-ending-temporary-protected-status-worry/.
[49] Diana Fishbein, "ICE's family separations are forcing children to parent themselves," The Hill, August 8, 2025, https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/5441487-ice-raids-trauma-children/.
[50] Kyle Cheney and Myah Ward, "Trump's new detention policy targets millions of immigrants. Judges keep saying it's illegal," Politico, September 20, 2025, https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/20/ice-detention-immigration-policy-00573850.
[51] Rebecca Schneid, "'Military-Style' ICE Raid On Chicago Apartment Building Shows Escalation in Trump's Crackdown," TIME, October 4, 2025, https://time.com/7323334/ice-raid-chicago-pritzker-trump/.
[52] Kris Cox, "IRS-ICE Agreement Poses Risks for All Taxpayers," CBPP, April 7, 2025, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/executive-action-watch?item=29822; Rene Marsh, "IRS begins sharing sensitive taxpayer data with immigration authorities to find undocumented migrants," CNN, August 8, 2025, https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/08/politics/irs-dhs-share-taxpayer-data-undocumented-immigrants.
[53] Margot Dankner, "Trump Administration Seeks to Take Away Head Start, Medical Care, and Other Vital Services From Lawfully Present Immigrants," CBPP, July 16, 2025, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/executive-action-watch?item=30181.
[54] Justin B. Winikoff, "Population & Migration," USDA, February 13, 2026, https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-population/population-migration.
[55] Sarah Alexander Melotte, "Half of All Rural Counties Are Losing Population. What Is Contributing to Those Declines?" Daily Yonder, April 15, 2026, https://dailyyonder.com/half-of-all-rural-counties-are-losing-population-what-is-contributing-to-those-declines/2026/04/15/.
[56] Winikoff, op. cit.
[57] Silva Mathema, Nicole Svajlenka, and Anneliese Hermann, "Revival and Opportunity: Immigrants in Rural America," Center for American Progress, September 2, 2018, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/revival-and-opportunity/.
[58] Winikoff, op. cit.
[59] Nicolas Morales, "Can Immigration Help Boost Rural Economies in the Fifth District and Beyond?" Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, May 2022, https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_brief/2022/eb_22-18.
[60] Alex Fitzpatrick and Kavya Beheraj, "These industries are the most reliant on noncitizen workers," Axios, August 12, 2025, https://www.axios.com/2025/08/12/noncitizen-foreign-workers-industries.
[61] Drishti Pillai and Samantha Artiga, "What Role Do Immigrants Play in the Rural Workforce?" KFF, August 4, 2025, https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/what-role-do-immigrants-play-in-the-rural-workforce/.
[62] Immigration Research Initiative, "The Entrepreneurial Spirit: A Profile of Business Owners Across the United States," March 19, 2026, https://immresearch.org/publications/the-entrepreneurial-spirit-a-profile-of-business-owners-across-the-united-states/.
[63] Spahia, Sinclair, and Rosoff, op. cit.
* * *
Gbenga Ajilore is the Center's Chief Economist. He most recently served as a senior advisor in the Office of the Undersecretary for Rural Development at the United States Department of Agriculture.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/trump-congressional-republican-agenda-has-harmed-rural-communities
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Trump, Congressional Republican Agenda Has Harmed Rural Communities
September 22, 2026 | Gbenga Ajilore
Policies adopted by the Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress have adversely impacted individuals and families living in rural communities, along with millions of other people across the country. Policies that supporters claimed would advance rural prosperity, such as the harmful 2025 Republican reconciliation law, the Administration's chaotic and haphazard tariff regime, and its ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued the following report: * * * Trump, Congressional Republican Agenda Has Harmed Rural Communities September 22, 2026 | Gbenga Ajilore Policies adopted by the Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress have adversely impacted individuals and families living in rural communities, along with millions of other people across the country. Policies that supporters claimed would advance rural prosperity, such as the harmful 2025 Republican reconciliation law, the Administration's chaotic and haphazard tariff regime, and itsviolent and costly immigrant deportation and detention campaign, have instead made life more difficult for rural residents.
[View table in the link at bottom.]
The reconciliation law cut nearly $200 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces. At the same time, it extended the expiring 2017 tax cuts, which provide the biggest gains to the wealthy, but did not extend the expiring premium tax credit enhancements, which helped families afford marketplace health coverage.[1] Considering the law as a whole, households with the lowest incomes will end up worse off -- they will lose significantly more from the cuts in health care and food assistance than they will gain from the tax cuts -- while the wealthiest households will be better off, according to the Congressional Budget Office.[2]
The reconciliation law hurts rural communities disproportionately because a larger share of rural residents have low incomes and experience material hardship than urban residents; rural residents also are more likely to receive health coverage through Medicaid and food assistance through SNAP. Fully 85 percent of the nation's counties that are persistently poor have entirely rural populations.[3] Households in rural areas are over-represented at the lower end of the income spectrum and under-represented at the top. (See Figure 1.) The reconciliation law -- with its tax cuts tilted to the top and its cuts in Medicaid and SNAP -- will worsen these inequities.
The reconciliation law is being implemented in an environment where prices are rising due to the Administration's tariffs and the war with Iran. Thus far in 2026, overall inflation has outpaced average wage growth, and both inflation measures -- the Consumer Price Index and the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index -- are over 3 percent, well above the Federal Reserve's 2 percent target.[4] Inflation especially hurts households with low or moderate incomes, many of whom are already struggling with the reconciliation law's cuts to health care and food assistance. A study by the Budget Lab at Yale found that together, the reconciliation law and the tariffs will leave households with incomes in the bottom 70 percent worse off.[5] (See Figure 2.)
[View table in the link at bottom.]
Adding to the damage from higher prices and cuts in food assistance and health care, rural communities are also being harmed by the Administration's cruel and violent immigration deportation and detention campaign. People who are immigrants play an essential role in mitigating rural population loss, strengthening rural labor markets, and revitalizing civic life in rural communities.
Recent Tax Changes Will Do Little for Rural Residents
The reconciliation law extends the expiring individual tax cuts in the 2017 Trump tax law and adds new tax cuts on top, such as increasing the amount that heirs of the largest estates can receive tax-free and adding highly skewed corporate tax breaks. Households with incomes in the top 1 percent will receive tax cuts over three times the size of those for households with incomes in the bottom 60 percent, measured as a share of after-tax income. And the 1.2 million households with annual incomes above $1 million (roughly the top 0.6 percent) will receive more total tax cuts than the 127 million households with incomes below $100,000.[6]
This skewed distribution means that rural communities, which generally have lower incomes than urban areas, will benefit relatively little from the tax cuts -- and this is before taking the impact of the SNAP and Medicaid cuts into account.
Republicans in Congress and supporters of the law argue that certain tax provisions in the reconciliation law benefit rural areas, in particular its tax breaks related to the estate tax and "Opportunity Zones."[7] But those arguments don't hold up under scrutiny.
Claims that the law's extension and expansion of previous cuts in the estate tax will help family farmers are highly misleading. Under prior law, only 0.3 percent of farm households or 141 estates owed any estate tax, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).[8] And no small farm or small business (those with farm or business assets of $5 million or less) paid any estate tax in 2023, the Tax Policy Center estimated.[9] The reconciliation law increased the amount that a wealthy couple can exempt from the estate tax -- and thus pass on to their heirs tax free -- to $30 million. That's $1.7 million more than the exemption would have been under a simple extension of the 2017 tax law. As a result of this change, the number of estates owing tax will shrink further, thereby further enriching wealthy families without any added benefit for the vast majority of farm households.[10]
Similarly, the reconciliation law's changes to the Opportunity Zone tax break likely won't help rural areas or residents significantly. As established under the 2017 tax law, the tax break lets investors defer capital gains taxes by "rolling" those gains into funds that invest in designated low-income areas, called Opportunity Zones; investors who keep their investments in the funds for at least five years also get a 10 percent capital gains exemption (plus extra tax breaks if the investments are held longer). Under the 2025 reconciliation law, investors who put their gains in funds that primarily invest in rural census tracts get a 30 percent capital gains exemption. They also benefit from weakened requirements to improve rural property: in general, Opportunity Zone funds must "substantially improve" -- that is, make major investments in -- assets they buy, like real estate, but funds that primarily invest in rural areas only have to invest half as much in asset improvements as is required in other Opportunity Zones.
Adding extra benefits for investment in rural census tracts does not fix the Opportunity Zone tax break's major flaws, which result from its failure to target investment to the places and people that need the most help.[11] Because the incentive is structured as a capital gains tax break, the largest benefits will continue to go to the projects with the highest financial returns -- likely in rapidly growing, primarily urban areas.
This is consistent with research on the 2017 law's Opportunity Zone provision. While investment did increase in designated zones,[12] much of the investment went to census tracts that had greater pre-existing private investment, rather than higher-need areas with the lowest-income residents.[13]
SNAP Cuts, Cost Shifts Could End SNAP Entirely in Rural Areas
The reconciliation law's cuts in food assistance will increase poverty, food insecurity, and hunger, including among children -- and the impact could be particularly severe in rural areas. Some 8.1 million rural residents received food assistance through SNAP in an average month of fiscal year 2024.[14] The share of residents receiving SNAP is higher in rural areas (13.8 percent) than in urban areas (11.4 percent).[15]
While many of the law's SNAP cuts are still phasing in, SNAP participation nationwide has already fallen by roughly 5 million people (12 percent) between the law's July 2025 enactment and May 2026 (the latest month available as of the date of this report). We estimate that well over 1.5 million fewer children are receiving SNAP nationwide, based on available data from 25 states.[16]
The reconciliation law takes away food assistance, in part, by expanding SNAP's harsh work requirement, which previously applied to most non-elderly, non-disabled adults without children in their homes but now also applies to adults with children aged 14 and older and adults ages 55 to 64. The law also ends exemptions for veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and young people who recently aged out of foster care. People subject to the requirement can only receive food benefits for three months in a 36-month period unless they can document they are working at least 20 hours per week or can prove, through a red-tape-laden process, that they qualify for an exemption (such as a physical limitation that prevents them from working).[17]
Meeting work requirements can be especially difficult in rural communities, where unemployment is generally higher, jobs are often farther away and harder to reach (particularly since public transportation tends to be less robust), and high-speed internet access is more limited.[18] Plus, the reconciliation law makes it harder for states to exempt a community from SNAP work requirements if jobs there are scarce; while volunteering counts toward the requirement, volunteer opportunities often are less available and accessible in rural areas.[19]
In addition, the most common area of employment in rural areas is the service sector,[20] where work hours are often uncertain and volatile.[21] Rural workers risk losing food assistance if they cannot get enough work hours consistently to meet the law's stringent requirements.
Another piece of the reconciliation law, the requirement that most states pay part of the cost of SNAP benefits starting in 2027, will also adversely affect rural states. The amount states will be required to pay will depend on their "error rate," which measures the accuracy of each state's eligibility and benefit determinations and largely reflects unintentional mistakes by state agencies and households. We estimate that states will face a collective bill of roughly $9 billion the first year this requirement is in effect, with nearly half of states required to pay $100 million or more to sustain SNAP.[22]
States that are unable or unwilling to pay these costs could end their SNAP programs entirely, leaving children, seniors, workers, people with disabilities, parents, and veterans without access to food assistance. Conservative-leaning states and those with fewer resources -- including many states with large rural populations -- may be more likely than other states to end or sharply scale back their SNAP programs as a result of these new cost burdens.
A large decline in the number of SNAP participants due to work requirements and cost shifts would also hurt the retailers that serve them. These retailers range from national retail chains to small, locally owned businesses such as private groceries, convenience stores, and farm stands. For locally owned small businesses, SNAP can be an important revenue source -- particularly in higher-poverty areas, where SNAP purchases can account for a significant share of a retailer's total sales. One analysis found that rural counties make up 77 percent of all counties where retailers are at greatest risk of harm from SNAP cuts due to their high SNAP participation and low number of SNAP retailers.[23]
SNAP plays an especially important role in the economy during downturns. Every $1 in additional spending on SNAP benefits in a slowing economy generates $1.54 in economic activity as households use their benefits to shop at local grocery stores and supermarkets, spurring new spending throughout local economies across the country and supporting jobs throughout the food supply chain.[24] A weakened SNAP program will be less able to support rural economies in the next recession.
Health Care Cuts Will Hurt Rural Residents and Hospitals
Rural residents need health coverage that they can use to access the care they need, when they need it, from the full range of providers in their communities -- including primary care doctors at community clinics and rural hospitals. Coverage gives enrollees agency to choose their providers and stabilizes the full provider network by paying providers when people access care. Coverage is also crucial for the financial viability of rural hospitals. Hospitals in the most vulnerable communities, like those experiencing persistent poverty in rural counties, are more likely to experience financial distress.[25]
Uninsured rates in rural areas have fallen substantially under the ACA, as millions of rural residents have obtained coverage through Medicaid (including the ACA Medicaid expansion) and the ACA marketplaces. More than 12 million rural residents -- including 47 percent of children in rural areas -- receive health care through Medicaid, which financed nearly half of all births in rural areas in 2023.[26] Just under 3 million marketplace enrollees in the 32 states using HealthCare.gov in 2026 lived in rural areas.[27] The reconciliation law, however, imposes a harsh new work requirement that takes Medicaid away from adults who can't meet its conditions or paperwork burdens, including people who are between jobs and people who should be exempt but get caught in bureaucratic red tape. It also creates incentives for states to further restrict access to health coverage and care.[28]
In addition, the law makes many immigrants with lawful statuses who previously were eligible for Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), ACA marketplace coverage, and Medicare ineligible for coverage through these programs, including refugees, asylees, and others with humanitarian protections.
Overall, rural hospitals may be particularly vulnerable to Medicaid cuts because they tend to rely more on Medicaid funding, operate with thinner margins, and face greater risk of closure.[29]
The ACA's Medicaid expansion has not only improved health coverage in rural areas but also provided a lifeline for rural hospitals and other providers, keeping them afloat by reducing the uncompensated costs they incur from serving uninsured residents.[30]
Now all of that is at risk due to the severe cuts in the reconciliation law. Like the law's SNAP work requirements, its Medicaid work requirements will disproportionately harm rural workers and families in states that have adopted the expansion. Unemployment is higher in rural areas and jobs are often farther away and harder to reach,[31] making it more difficult for rural residents to meet the work requirement.[32]
The reconciliation law includes a five-year Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) that's meant to mitigate the harm to rural communities from the health care cuts. But the program's $50 billion in one-time funding pales in comparison to the permanent Medicaid cuts, which total more than $900 billion over ten years -- about $137 billion of which will impact rural areas, according to KFF.[33]
While some states are using RHTP funds in thoughtful ways, implementation is proving difficult and the money is not reaching some of the most at-risk communities.[34] For instance, states are limited in how they can use the funds to support struggling rural hospitals.[35] To meet the terms of the grant, some states are cutting services such as dialysis or labor and delivery or converting hospitals into Rural Emergency Hospitals, which offer no in-patient care.[36] Ultimately, the fund will neither replace affordable health care nor offset the large-scale reductions in federal funding from the reconciliation law's other provisions.[37]
On top of enacting the harmful reconciliation law, Congress failed to renew the premium tax credit enhancements that helped working families afford marketplace coverage in recent years. Their expiration at the end of 2025 has driven up families' premium costs across the country.
Many people have shifted towards skimpier plans with lower premiums but are now facing higher deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs.[38] Many others have dropped coverage entirely as unaffordable: in 2026, 1.2 million fewer people selected marketplace plans than in 2025.[39] Enrollment fell more than twice as much in rural areas -- by 10 percent (roughly 300,000 people) -- as in non-rural areas, which declined by 4 percent.[40] (See Figure 3.) The enrollment declines have only grown during 2026, to nearly 3 million so far.[41]
[View table in the link at bottom.]
Tariffs, Iran War Adding to Economic Pressure on Rural Areas
The Trump Administration's sweeping tariffs have imposed large burdens on rural residents, including farmers and small businesses. Research shows that U.S. businesses have borne around 90 percent of the tariffs, some of which they have passed on to consumers.[42] Tariffs are harming the agricultural sector of the economy, raising the prices that farmers must pay for inputs like fertilizer and farm equipment made with imported steel and aluminum.
Tariffs have been an ongoing focus of this Administration. On April 2, 2025, the President announced a wide-ranging tariff scheme imposing a minimum tariff rate of 10 percent on over 70 countries. When the market reacted negatively, he postponed many of these tariffs and backtracked on several others. This was indicative of how tariffs would proceed through the rest of 2025. Adding to the volatility, the President repeatedly threatened tariffs in response to outside issues, such as disputes over control of Greenland.[43] On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court struck down the President's use of the International Economic Emergency Powers Act to impose tariffs in April 2025, but the President has continued imposing broadly similar tariffs using different authorities (though these moves face further legal challenges).[44]
Further, the war in Iran is pushing up prices for already strained farmers, with higher costs for fertilizer and energy on top of the tariffs. Gas prices have been rising throughout 2026 due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Rural households are disproportionately harmed by higher gas prices because they tend to have higher rates of vehicle ownership, longer commutes, and less access to public transit than urban households.[45] Diesel prices are going up as well, which impacts inputs like agricultural machinery. In addition, since one-third of the world's fertilizer supply goes through the Strait, its closure has also raised fertilizer prices. In short, the combination of the Administration's tariff policies and the Iran war is significantly driving up the cost of gas, food, and energy for rural families, as well as the rest of the country.
Anti-Immigrant Campaign Weakens Rural Communities
The Trump Administration is relentlessly pursuing a multi-tiered effort aimed at reducing the number of immigrants in the United States. This has included sweeping efforts to curtail lawful immigration through travel bans,[46] the decimation of the refugee program,[47] and the systematic termination of Temporary Protected Status and other forms of humanitarian protection.[48] The Administration has also poured billions into a large and often violent detention and deportation apparatus that is separating families[49] and violating the legal and constitutional rights of many immigrants[50] and others[51] who get swept up by this cruel dragnet.
In addition, the Administration has engaged in a variety of policies and actions aimed at discouraging or otherwise obstructing immigrants and their families from accessing vital benefits they need and for which they are eligible. Agencies have shared personal data collected on benefit applications and tax forms with the Department of Homeland Security to support its mass deportation efforts;[52] they also have sought to restrict access to vital services that, for decades, both Republican and Democratic administrations have interpreted as open to eligible members of the public regardless of immigration status.[53] These actions threaten to undo immigrants' many contributions to rural economies and communities, alongside other harmful impacts.
People who are immigrants have played a key role in repopulating and revitalizing rural communities, where population growth began slowing in the early 1990s and population actually declined in the 2010s.[54] Annual deaths in nonmetro counties have exceeded annual births since 2017,[55] so any population growth (or reduction in population decline) must come from more people moving into rural communities -- including immigrants -- than moving out. This has been the case in the 2020s, where the nonmetro population has been increasing due to migration.[56] One study found that 78 percent of the rural places where population declined starting in 1990 would have experienced a greater decline if not for immigrants.[57] Another study found that in most rural counties with positive net annual migration between 2022 and 2024, it was driven entirely by newly arriving immigrants.[58]
Immigrants' positive impact on rural areas goes much further than mitigating population loss.[59] Immigrants help fill labor shortages, bring skills needed in rural labor markets, and contribute to the local economy by spending, starting new businesses, and paying taxes. Immigrants make up the largest share of employment in the construction, agriculture, and accommodation and food services industries, which are prevalent in rural areas; more than 1 in 4 rural agriculture workers -- 28 percent of them -- are immigrants.[60] In addition, immigrants are an important part of the rural health care workforce, which faces severe shortages. Immigrants account for 14 percent of physicians in rural areas, well above their 5 percent share of the overall rural workforce.[61] This contribution will become increasingly vital as the rural population ages and the demand for health care workers rises.
Beyond strengthening the rural workforce, many immigrants who move into rural communities open businesses and revitalize "main streets." Immigrants are more likely than U.S.-born workers to own businesses and are more likely to own "main street" businesses (storefront institutions like grocery stores, nail salons, gas stations, and restaurants).[62] Immigrants also contribute to the civic life of rural places, as well as to community safety.[63]
For rural areas, the Administration's anti-immigrant campaign will likely mean fewer workers, fewer people starting new businesses, and fewer people supporting local economies and adding to local communities.
* * *
Federal Workforce Cuts Undermine Service for Rural Residents
Upon taking office, the Trump Administration began rapidly cutting the federal workforce without congressional approval, causing disruptions and slowdowns in services ranging from repairing infrastructure damage from hurricanes to removing lead contamination from public schools to answering questions from Social Security beneficiaries. This severe retrenchment in federal capacity -- generally unaccompanied by any clear plan on how to maintain the programs and services that these workers administer and that Congress continues to support -- has been radical in both size and speed.a And rural areas are feeling some of the biggest impacts.
A prominent example is the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), with agencies and programs focused on serving rural households and farming communities. USDA, excluding the Forest Service, lost over 25 percent of its workforce between January 2025 and May 2026, and the Forest Service has lost 8 percent of its employees over the past 12 months, after accounting for seasonal adjustments.b USDA expects these staffing losses to grow in response to the agency's reorganization plan, which is forcing thousands of employees to relocate across the country or leave.c
In addition, Rural Development, the USDA mission area serving rural communities, lost 38 percent of its workforce in the Administration's first 12 months.d The first Trump Administration downgraded the position of Undersecretary for Rural Development, suggesting a lack of support for the mission area as a whole.e
In federal agencies, the recent closure of local field offices and loss of staff who administer programs and interact with residents have harmed rural communities and residents.f At the Social Security Administration, for example, staff losses have undermined customer service, contributing to long phone wait times and lengthy waits for appointments.g These problems pose particularly large challenges for elderly rural residents who have struggled with the agency's shift to online service delivery.h
a Kiran Rachamallu and Devin O' Connor, "Administration's Radical Personnel Cuts Bypassed Congress and Lacked Transparency, Obscuring impact on Public Services," CBPP, January 15, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/administrations-radical-personnel-cuts-bypassed-congress-and-lacked.
b Office of Personnel Management, "Federal Workforce Data," accessed on July 20, 2026, https://data.opm.gov/.
c Jory Heckman, "USDA expects 'significant number' of staff facing relocation to leave their jobs," Federal News Network, July 2, 2026, https://federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/2026/07/usda-expects-significant-number-of-staff-facing-relocation-to-leave-their-jobs/.
d Office of Personnel Management, op. cit.
e National Association of Counties, "Administration Eliminates USDA Rural Development Undersecretary," May 15, 2017, https://www.naco.org/articles/administration-eliminates-usda-rural-development-undersecretary .
f Rebekah Alvey, "Rural Development Experts Warn Against USDA Cuts at Local Offices," Civil Eats, September 19, 2025, https://civileats.com/2025/09/19/rural-development-experts-warn-against-usda-cuts-at-local-offices/.
g Kathleen Romig, "New Data Show Social Security Staff Cuts Harm Service Delivery in Every State," CBPP, June 3, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/new-data-show-social-security-staff-cuts-harm-service-delivery-in-every-state.
h Barbara Butrica and Jonathan Schwabish, "Social Security Office Closures Will Hurt Rural and Tribal Communities," Urban Institute, March 24, 2025, https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/social-security-office-closures-will-hurt-rural-and-tribal-communities.
* * *
End Notes
[1] Brendan Duke, "Republican Megabill Trades Essential Support to Low-Income People for Skewed Tax Cuts," CBPP, updated February 11, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/republican-megabill-trades-essential-support-to-low-income-people-for-skewed.
[2] Congressional Budget Office (CBO), "How the 2025 Reconciliation Act (Public Law 119-21) Will Affect the Distribution of Resources Available to Households," August 11, 2025, https://www.cbo.gov/interactive/2025-reconciliation-act.
[3] Tracey Farrigan, "Rural Poverty & Well-Being," USDA, February 13, 2026, https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-population/rural-poverty-well-being. This analysis "defined counties as being persistently poor if 20 percent or more of their populations were living in poverty based on the 1980, 1990, and 2000 decennial censuses and 2007-11 ACS 5-year estimates."
[4] Malik Woullard and Gbenga Ajilore, "Inflation: Key Measures to Understand," CBPP, January 16, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/inflation-key-measures-to-understand.
[5] Yale Budget Lab, "Combined Distributional Effects of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and of Tariffs," updated December 2025, https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/combined-distributional-effects-one-big-beautiful-bill-act-and-tariffs-0.
[6] Samantha Jacoby, Chuck Marr, and Kris Cox, "Republican Megabill Tax Provisions Are Skewed to the Rich, Fail to Deliver for Families, and Are Fiscally Irresponsible," CBPP, December 17, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/republican-megabill-tax-provisions-are-skewed-to-the-rich-fail-to-deliver-for.
[7] House Committee on Ways and Means, "Working Family Tax Cuts Keeps Family Farming Alive and Growing in America," March 20, 2026, https://waysandmeans.house.gov/2026/03/20/working-families-tax-cuts-keeps-family-farming-alive-and-growing-in-america/.
[8] USDA, "Federal Tax Issues - Federal Estate Taxes," February 9, 2026, https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/farm-economy/federal-tax-issues/federal-estate-taxes.
[9] Tax Policy Center, "Who Pays the Estate Tax?" January 2024, https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/who-pays-estate-tax.
[10] Samantha Jacoby, "House Republican Tax Bill Extends - and Expands - Costly Tax Breaks for the Wealthy," CBPP, June 4, 2025, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/house-republican-tax-bill-extends-and-expands-costly-tax-breaks-for-the-wealthy.
[11] Samantha Jacoby, "Potential Flaws of Opportunity Zones Loom, as Do Risks of Large-Scale Tax Avoidance," CBPP, January 11, 2019, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/potential-flaws-of-opportunity-zones-loom-as-do-risks-of-large-scale-tax.
[12] David Wessel, "How did the One Big Beautiful Bill Act change Opportunity Zones?" Brookings, July 8, 2025, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-did-the-one-big-beautiful-bill-act-change-opportunity-zones/
[13] Kevin Corinth et al., "The Targeting of Place-Based Policies: The New Markets Tax Credit Versus Opportunity Zones," NBER Working Paper 33414, January 2025, https://www.nber.org/papers/w33414.
[14] Ben Ward and Mia Monkovic, "Characteristics of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Households: Fiscal Year 2024," USDA, May 2026, https://www.fna.usda.gov/research/snap/characteristics-fy24.
[15] U.S. Census Bureau, "American Community Survey: S2201: Food Stamps/Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program," 2024, https://data.census.gov/table/ACSST1Y2024.S2201?q=s2201&g=010XXC0US_010XXH0US.
[16] Dottie Rosenbaum et al., "SNAP Tracker: People Are Losing Food Assistance as the Harmful 2025 Republican Reconciliation Law Is Implemented," CBPP, updated August 26, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/snap-tracker-people-are-losing-food-assistance-as-the-republican-megabill.
[17] USDA, "SNAP Work Requirements," updated August 29, 2025, https://www.fns.usda.gov/snap/work-requirements.
[18] Emma Parker-Newton, "Medicaid Work Requirements Undermine Rural Healthcare," National Health Law Program, April 7, 2025, https://healthlaw.org/resource/medicaid-work-requirements-undermine-rural-healthcare/.
[19] Jie Jenny Zou, "'Blindsided' Counties Struggle to Implement Trump's SNAP Work Rules," New York Focus, November 10, 2025, https://nysfocus.com/2025/11/10/trump-counties-snap-work-rules.
[20] Thomas Hertz, "Service industries account for the largest share of rural and urban employment," USDA, March 25, 2016, https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=78844.
[21] Elizabeth Ananat, Anna Gassman-Pines, and Olivia Howard, "Work requirements penalize workers in volatile occupations," Hamilton Project, May 22, 2025, https://www.hamiltonproject.org/publication/post/work-requirements-penalize-workers-in-volatile-occupations/.
[22] Katie Bergh and Joseph Llobrera, "States' First-Ever Bill for SNAP Benefits Could Cost Billions," CBPP, June 24, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/states-first-ever-bill-for-snap-benefits-could-cost-billions.
[23] Kyle Ross and Kennedy Andara, "SNAP Cuts Are Likely To Harm More Than 27,000 Retailers Nationwide," Center for American Progress, May 8, 2025, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/snap-cuts-are-likely-to-harm-more-than-27000-retailers-nationwide/.
[24] Diana Spahia, Carla Sinclair, and Stephanie Rosoff, "Global Roots, Local Impact: A Research Review of How Immigrants Impact the Economies, Health, and Safety of their Communities," CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance, April 16, 2026, https://islg.cuny.edu/resources/global-roots-local-impact.
[25] Tyler L. Malone, George H. Pink, and George M. Holmes, "An updated model of rural hospital financial distress," Journal of Rural Health, October 3, 2024, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jrh.12882.
[26] Scott Hulver et al., "5 Key Facts About Medicaid and Hospitals," KFF, March 5, 2025, https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/5-key-facts-about-medicaid-and-hospitals/.
[27] KFF, "HealthCare.gov Marketplace Plan Selections by Rural Status," 2025, https://www.kff.org/affordable-care-act/state-indicator/healthcare-gov-marketplace-plan-selections-by-rural-status-2/.
[28] Allie Gardner, "Proposed Medicaid Provider Tax Rule Will Further Cut Federal Medicaid Spending," CBPP, July 21, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/executive-action-watch?item=30710.
[29] Fredric Blavin, Michael Simpson, and Laura Skopec, "Rural Hospital Revenue Could Drop by $87 Billion over 10 Years Because of the Reconciliation Bill and Expiring Enhanced Tax Credits," Urban Institute, June 30, 2025, https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/rural-hospital-revenue-could-drop-87-billion-over-10-years-because-reconciliation-bill.
[30] Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission, "Report to Congress and Medicaid and CHIP," Chapter 3, March 2024, https://www.macpac.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Chapter-3-Annual-Analysis-of-Medicaid-Disproportionate-Share-Hospital-Allotments-to-States.pdf.
[31] Parker-Newton, op. cit.
[32] CBPP, "How Medicaid Work Requirements Will Harm Rural Residents - And Communities," March 10, 2020, https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/how-medicaid-work-requirements-will-harm-rural-residents-and-communities.
[33] Zachary Levinson and Tricia Neuman, "A Closer Look at the $50 Billion Rural Health Fund in the New Reconciliation Law," KFF, August 4, 2025, https://www.kff.org/medicaid/a-closer-look-at-the-50-billion-rural-health-fund-in-the-new-reconciliation-law/.
[34] Tyler Dedrick, "At-Risk Communities Shortchanged by Rural Health Transformation Program, Research Shows," Daily Yonder, April 27, 2026, https://dailyyonder.com/at-risk-communities-shortchanged-by-rural-health-transformation-program-research-shows/2026/04/27/.
[35] Sarah Jane Tribble and Arielle Zionts, "Backed by Threat of Clawbacks, Feds Wield Tight Grip on $50B Rural Health Fund," KFF Health News, June 16, 2026, https://kffhealthnews.org/rural-health/rural-health-transformation-program-federal-cms-clawbacks-state-plans/.
[36] Michael Brady, "The $50B rural health transformation fund is pushing many hospitals to shrink," Healthcare Dive, June 24, 2026, https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/rural-health-transformation-fund-50-billion-push-hospitals-shrink/823206/.
[37] Allison Orris and Gbenga Ajilore, "Rural Health Fund Will Do Little to Offset Harm to Rural Providers in Republican Megabill," CBPP, September 26, 2025, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/rural-health-fund-will-do-little-to-offset-harm-to-rural-providers-in-republican-megabill.
[38] Jennifer Sullivan and Elizabeth Zhang, "Higher Marketplace Premiums Take a Toll on Enrollment and on Marketplace Enrollees," CBPP, May 18, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/higher-marketplace-premiums-take-a-toll-on-enrollment-and-on-marketplace-enrollees.
[39] Nicole Rapfogel, "New Data Show Marketplace Consumers Facing Higher Costs, Selecting Lower-Quality Coverage," CBPP, April 2, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/new-data-show-marketplace-consumers-facing-higher-costs-selecting-lower-quality-coverage.
[40] Author's calculations from Healthcare.gov database.
[41] Claire Heyison, "ACA Marketplace Enrollment Shrank in Nearly Every State After Premium Tax Credit Enhancements Expired," CBPP, July 20, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/blog/aca-marketplace-enrollment-shrank-in-nearly-every-state-after-premium-tax-credit-enhancements.
[42] Mary Amiti et al., "Who is Paying for the 2025 U.S. Tariffs?" Liberty Street Economics, February 12, 2026, https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/02/who-is-paying-for-the-2025-u-s-tariffs/.
[43] Chad P. Brown, "Trump's trade war timeline 2.0: An up-to-date guide," Peterson Institute for International Economics, February 20, 2026, https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2025/trumps-trade-war-timeline-20-date-guide; Ana Swanson, "Trump Returns to a Familiar Role: Sowing Trade Chaos," New York Times, January 22, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/22/us/politics/trump-trade-chaos.html.
[44] Herb Scribner and Courtenay Brown, "Trump signals new tariffs plan. Here's how Section 122 works," Axios, February 20, 2026, https://www.axios.com/2026/02/20/trump-tariff-plan-section-122-trade-act; Kimberly Clausing and Maurice Obstfeld, "What the Supreme Court's tariff ruling changes, and what it doesn't," Peterson Institute for International Economics, February 23, 2026, https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2026/what-supreme-courts-tariff-ruling-changes-and-what-it-doesnt; Courtenay Brown, "Trump employs unused law in new tariff playbook," Axios, July 21, 2026, https://www.axios.com/2026/07/21/trump-tariffs-imports-canada.
[45] Alex Dorman, "The ripple of rising gas prices: Transportation burden, food prices, and rural communities," Center for Community Solutions, April 6, 2026, https://www.communitysolutions.com/resources/the-ripple-of-rising-gas-prices-transportation-burden-food-prices-and-rural-communities.
[46] U.S. Department of State, "Suspension of Visa Issuance to Foreign Nationals to Protect the Security of the United States," updated February 2, 2026, https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/suspension-of-visa-issuance-to-foreign-nationals-to-protect-the-security-of-the-united-states.html.
[47] Rumbidzai Muzirwa and Nikki Carrion, "Policies Affecting Refugees in the United States: Suspension of Admissions, Re-Vetting, and New Detention Authority," Global Refuge, March 10, 2026, Policies-Affecting-Refugees-in-the-United-States_Suspension-of-Admissions-Re-Vetting-and-New-Detention-Authority-1.pdf.
[48] Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, "Confusion and Worry Grow as Temporary Protected Status Set to Expire for Hundreds of Thousands," American Immigration Council, July 15, 2026, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/trump-administration-ending-temporary-protected-status-worry/.
[49] Diana Fishbein, "ICE's family separations are forcing children to parent themselves," The Hill, August 8, 2025, https://thehill.com/opinion/immigration/5441487-ice-raids-trauma-children/.
[50] Kyle Cheney and Myah Ward, "Trump's new detention policy targets millions of immigrants. Judges keep saying it's illegal," Politico, September 20, 2025, https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/20/ice-detention-immigration-policy-00573850.
[51] Rebecca Schneid, "'Military-Style' ICE Raid On Chicago Apartment Building Shows Escalation in Trump's Crackdown," TIME, October 4, 2025, https://time.com/7323334/ice-raid-chicago-pritzker-trump/.
[52] Kris Cox, "IRS-ICE Agreement Poses Risks for All Taxpayers," CBPP, April 7, 2025, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/executive-action-watch?item=29822; Rene Marsh, "IRS begins sharing sensitive taxpayer data with immigration authorities to find undocumented migrants," CNN, August 8, 2025, https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/08/politics/irs-dhs-share-taxpayer-data-undocumented-immigrants.
[53] Margot Dankner, "Trump Administration Seeks to Take Away Head Start, Medical Care, and Other Vital Services From Lawfully Present Immigrants," CBPP, July 16, 2025, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/executive-action-watch?item=30181.
[54] Justin B. Winikoff, "Population & Migration," USDA, February 13, 2026, https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/rural-economy-population/population-migration.
[55] Sarah Alexander Melotte, "Half of All Rural Counties Are Losing Population. What Is Contributing to Those Declines?" Daily Yonder, April 15, 2026, https://dailyyonder.com/half-of-all-rural-counties-are-losing-population-what-is-contributing-to-those-declines/2026/04/15/.
[56] Winikoff, op. cit.
[57] Silva Mathema, Nicole Svajlenka, and Anneliese Hermann, "Revival and Opportunity: Immigrants in Rural America," Center for American Progress, September 2, 2018, https://www.americanprogress.org/article/revival-and-opportunity/.
[58] Winikoff, op. cit.
[59] Nicolas Morales, "Can Immigration Help Boost Rural Economies in the Fifth District and Beyond?" Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, May 2022, https://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/economic_brief/2022/eb_22-18.
[60] Alex Fitzpatrick and Kavya Beheraj, "These industries are the most reliant on noncitizen workers," Axios, August 12, 2025, https://www.axios.com/2025/08/12/noncitizen-foreign-workers-industries.
[61] Drishti Pillai and Samantha Artiga, "What Role Do Immigrants Play in the Rural Workforce?" KFF, August 4, 2025, https://www.kff.org/racial-equity-and-health-policy/what-role-do-immigrants-play-in-the-rural-workforce/.
[62] Immigration Research Initiative, "The Entrepreneurial Spirit: A Profile of Business Owners Across the United States," March 19, 2026, https://immresearch.org/publications/the-entrepreneurial-spirit-a-profile-of-business-owners-across-the-united-states/.
[63] Spahia, Sinclair, and Rosoff, op. cit.
* * *
Gbenga Ajilore is the Center's Chief Economist. He most recently served as a senior advisor in the Office of the Undersecretary for Rural Development at the United States Department of Agriculture.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.cbpp.org/research/economy/trump-congressional-republican-agenda-has-harmed-rural-communities
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Commentary Entitled 'He Said, Xi Said'
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary:
* * *
He Said, Xi Said
Commentary by William Alan Reinsch
September 22, 2026
Once again, this week, the United States and China are holding a summit meeting between the two nations' leaders. Indications are that both procedurally and substantively it will be very much like the last one in May in Beijing. Procedurally, it looks like Xi Jinping will be on the ground in Washington for about 36 hours, about the same amount of time Trump spent in Beijing, and he is bringing a delegation of ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary: * * * He Said, Xi Said Commentary by William Alan Reinsch September 22, 2026 Once again, this week, the United States and China are holding a summit meeting between the two nations' leaders. Indications are that both procedurally and substantively it will be very much like the last one in May in Beijing. Procedurally, it looks like Xi Jinping will be on the ground in Washington for about 36 hours, about the same amount of time Trump spent in Beijing, and he is bringing a delegation ofbusiness leaders with him just as Trump did. And there will be a state dinner, just as there was in May.
Substantively, the outcome may be similar as well. As always, Trump will say it was a very successful meeting. That may or may not be true, but both countries are beset with growing economic problems and are not interested in adding a crisis in the bilateral relationship to them, which means they have every incentive not to rock the boat. The relationship over the past 20 months has been characterized by a series of provocations followed by retaliation, then counterretaliation, and finally a leaders' meeting that produces a reset and restarts the cycle. A ceasefire of sorts was reached at the summit last October, and it has more or less held so far. It expires the week after the midterm elections, but observers expect a decision to renew it before then, probably for another year. That would be a modest but welcome outcome, although the possibility of another round of provocations and retaliations is always only one Truth Social post away.
While there is no shortage of issues that could come up, expectations for substantial results are modest. The two governments cannot or will not talk about the big things, so instead they content themselves with small things. The big things haven't changed very much over the years. The United States wants China to end its subsidies and intellectual property theft and to change its economic model away from overcapacity and export growth to greater domestic consumption. China wants the United States to loosen its export controls on sensitive technologies and be more accommodating on Taiwan. Neither country is going to meet those demands to any significant extent, so instead, the two discuss more specific irritants, such as the U.S. tariffs and China's restrictions on exports of rare earths and critical minerals. Both sides may make vague promises in these areas that are not likely to amount to much, and we can expect the usual commercial deals involving Boeing aircraft, minerals, and agriculture, as well as commitments to revivify the Board of Trade and Board of Investment.
A related issue will be the ongoing Section 301 investigation into overcapacity. The investigation covers 16 countries, but China is the most important because it is the most guilty. Additional U.S. tariffs on China as a result of this investigation are likely, but it appears that the United States has limited flexibility in applying them: An additional 7.5 percent would reach the cap agreed to in last year's ceasefire. If the United States sticks to that previous agreement, it would be good news for both China and the other countries being investigated. It would be a small increase for China, and the others would rightly expect any tariffs on them to be even smaller, as China is the biggest, if not the only, offender. This decision has been put off until after the summit, but China undoubtedly will have something to say about it.
The most eagerly awaited discussion will be on artificial intelligence. Both countries are locked in a battle for technological leadership, at the same time that concern is growing in each over the short-term economic and safety implications and the long-term existential consequences if the technology gets out of control. This is a problem that begs for an agreement on rules and guardrails, but that is not likely to be forthcoming. Instead, expect an announcement of an expanded dialogue that will kick the can on action, hopefully not before it's too late.
Another issue will be the recently passed legislation providing for additional sanctions on Russia, including up to 100 percent tariffs on the biggest buyers of Russian oil, one of which is China. The Treasury Department recently expanded existing Russia sanctions but has been unclear about the extent to which they will apply to China. Expect similar ambiguity about the newly authorized tariffs. This is one of those issues that illustrates a divide in the administration between Trump and everybody else: While senior officials follow the president's lead, most of them have a more skeptical view of China and would prefer a harder line. Trump persists in his fondness for personal diplomacy, apparently believing that if he cultivates good personal relations with his counterparts, they will make deals with him. This has been his approach to Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and Xi Jinping. It has not been successful with the first two and, so far, has not produced much with Xi beyond periodic ceasefires. One could argue that this is a smart strategy so long as the United States remains dependent on China for critical minerals. The administration is pursuing policies to enhance domestic and allied capabilities, as did preceding administrations, but progress takes time, and in the short term, if China were to cut off access to minerals, there would be a significant blow to the U.S. economy.
Finally, a summit would not be a summit without mention of Taiwan, which Xi is certain to bring up hoping to persuade Trump to make further statements casting doubt on the extent of U.S. support for the island. This is primarily a foreign policy issue, but an escalation of pressure on Taiwan could have serious economic consequences for the United States, particularly in its semiconductor sector.
As my CSIS colleague Scott Kennedy put it in his recent summit forecast, "This is a great power competition tempered by interdependence, a rough balance of power, and a need by both to handle challenges at home." That means a "small" summit where the most likely outcome will be small deals and vague commitments. And, ironically, that may be the best news possible at the moment.
* * *
William A. Reinsch is a senior adviser (non-resident) and Scholl Chair emeritus with the Economics Program and Scholl Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at wreinsch7@gmail.com.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/he-said-xi-said
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
He Said, Xi Said
Commentary by William Alan Reinsch
September 22, 2026
Once again, this week, the United States and China are holding a summit meeting between the two nations' leaders. Indications are that both procedurally and substantively it will be very much like the last one in May in Beijing. Procedurally, it looks like Xi Jinping will be on the ground in Washington for about 36 hours, about the same amount of time Trump spent in Beijing, and he is bringing a delegation of ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following commentary: * * * He Said, Xi Said Commentary by William Alan Reinsch September 22, 2026 Once again, this week, the United States and China are holding a summit meeting between the two nations' leaders. Indications are that both procedurally and substantively it will be very much like the last one in May in Beijing. Procedurally, it looks like Xi Jinping will be on the ground in Washington for about 36 hours, about the same amount of time Trump spent in Beijing, and he is bringing a delegation ofbusiness leaders with him just as Trump did. And there will be a state dinner, just as there was in May.
Substantively, the outcome may be similar as well. As always, Trump will say it was a very successful meeting. That may or may not be true, but both countries are beset with growing economic problems and are not interested in adding a crisis in the bilateral relationship to them, which means they have every incentive not to rock the boat. The relationship over the past 20 months has been characterized by a series of provocations followed by retaliation, then counterretaliation, and finally a leaders' meeting that produces a reset and restarts the cycle. A ceasefire of sorts was reached at the summit last October, and it has more or less held so far. It expires the week after the midterm elections, but observers expect a decision to renew it before then, probably for another year. That would be a modest but welcome outcome, although the possibility of another round of provocations and retaliations is always only one Truth Social post away.
While there is no shortage of issues that could come up, expectations for substantial results are modest. The two governments cannot or will not talk about the big things, so instead they content themselves with small things. The big things haven't changed very much over the years. The United States wants China to end its subsidies and intellectual property theft and to change its economic model away from overcapacity and export growth to greater domestic consumption. China wants the United States to loosen its export controls on sensitive technologies and be more accommodating on Taiwan. Neither country is going to meet those demands to any significant extent, so instead, the two discuss more specific irritants, such as the U.S. tariffs and China's restrictions on exports of rare earths and critical minerals. Both sides may make vague promises in these areas that are not likely to amount to much, and we can expect the usual commercial deals involving Boeing aircraft, minerals, and agriculture, as well as commitments to revivify the Board of Trade and Board of Investment.
A related issue will be the ongoing Section 301 investigation into overcapacity. The investigation covers 16 countries, but China is the most important because it is the most guilty. Additional U.S. tariffs on China as a result of this investigation are likely, but it appears that the United States has limited flexibility in applying them: An additional 7.5 percent would reach the cap agreed to in last year's ceasefire. If the United States sticks to that previous agreement, it would be good news for both China and the other countries being investigated. It would be a small increase for China, and the others would rightly expect any tariffs on them to be even smaller, as China is the biggest, if not the only, offender. This decision has been put off until after the summit, but China undoubtedly will have something to say about it.
The most eagerly awaited discussion will be on artificial intelligence. Both countries are locked in a battle for technological leadership, at the same time that concern is growing in each over the short-term economic and safety implications and the long-term existential consequences if the technology gets out of control. This is a problem that begs for an agreement on rules and guardrails, but that is not likely to be forthcoming. Instead, expect an announcement of an expanded dialogue that will kick the can on action, hopefully not before it's too late.
Another issue will be the recently passed legislation providing for additional sanctions on Russia, including up to 100 percent tariffs on the biggest buyers of Russian oil, one of which is China. The Treasury Department recently expanded existing Russia sanctions but has been unclear about the extent to which they will apply to China. Expect similar ambiguity about the newly authorized tariffs. This is one of those issues that illustrates a divide in the administration between Trump and everybody else: While senior officials follow the president's lead, most of them have a more skeptical view of China and would prefer a harder line. Trump persists in his fondness for personal diplomacy, apparently believing that if he cultivates good personal relations with his counterparts, they will make deals with him. This has been his approach to Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, and Xi Jinping. It has not been successful with the first two and, so far, has not produced much with Xi beyond periodic ceasefires. One could argue that this is a smart strategy so long as the United States remains dependent on China for critical minerals. The administration is pursuing policies to enhance domestic and allied capabilities, as did preceding administrations, but progress takes time, and in the short term, if China were to cut off access to minerals, there would be a significant blow to the U.S. economy.
Finally, a summit would not be a summit without mention of Taiwan, which Xi is certain to bring up hoping to persuade Trump to make further statements casting doubt on the extent of U.S. support for the island. This is primarily a foreign policy issue, but an escalation of pressure on Taiwan could have serious economic consequences for the United States, particularly in its semiconductor sector.
As my CSIS colleague Scott Kennedy put it in his recent summit forecast, "This is a great power competition tempered by interdependence, a rough balance of power, and a need by both to handle challenges at home." That means a "small" summit where the most likely outcome will be small deals and vague commitments. And, ironically, that may be the best news possible at the moment.
* * *
William A. Reinsch is a senior adviser (non-resident) and Scholl Chair emeritus with the Economics Program and Scholl Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at wreinsch7@gmail.com.
* * *
Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/he-said-xi-said
[Category: ThinkTank]