Hochul blasts tariffs at State Fair as Blakeman agrees to end formal ICE agreement

As Gov. Kathy Hochul kicked off opening day of the 185th Great New York State Fair, she wouldn’t stop pounding an anti-tariff drum – offering a direct rebuke of President Donald Trump’s threat to tax foreign imports that have driven up agriculture costs.

“The farmers have been really at the tip of the spear of everything that has been happening with respect to the trade wars,” Hochul told reporters, with state Department of Agriculture & Markets Commissioner Richard Ball in tow.

Hochul toured the historic fairgrounds in Syracuse with her husband, Bill Hochul, often holding the hand of their 4-year-old granddaughter, Sofia. Between  sipping 25-cent cups of fresh milk and admiring the traditional butter sculpture, the governor also stopped to talk with vendors and farmers as she seeks reelection this fall against Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican who’s fiercely loyal to Trump.

Hochul said the ongoing trade war with Canada is impacting farmers across the state, who rely on fertilizer, fencing and other necessities across the northern border. Hochul recounted that one grower at the fair told her they’re constantly worried about the trade battle with Canada, as 40% of their apples are exported there, and Canada has made retaliatory threats to stop accepting the crop from the U.S.

“That hurts the entire industry that we have, and that’s just one small example,” she said. “Let’s get serious about trying to bring this, this our economy back after being so brutally assaulted by the Trump administration and their trade policies.”

The subtext was clear: As Hochul’s continued strategy has been to tie Blakeman to Trump, it’s logical for her to try to win over some upstate voters – likely more conservative – by focusing on an issue that hits close to home for them: tariffs. And this week’s developments in the U.S.-Canada trade dispute makes that all the more relevant. 

She later held a roundtable with several farmers who continued blasting the agricultural uncertainty brought on by the persisting tariff rollercoaster.

Jim Bittner, owner of Bittner-Singer Orchards in Western New York, said ordering specialty farm equipment, like tractors and replacement parts, has hurt the most, as tariffs on imported steel and other goods persist.

"We just don’t know what's going to happen one day to the next,” he said of his 100-acre Niagara County farm. “We don't know what to plant. We don't know what, we have no certainty of what's going on next year or year after that.”

Blakeman intends to head to the fair on Friday, his campaign told City & State. But Wednesday, he was busy decrying not a Trump policy, but one of Hochul’s. Blakeman finally gave in to comply with the new policy Wednesday that limits local police from working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol after refusing to for months, and said he plans to join a lawsuit that 15 sheriffs filed against the law on Tuesday. He noted, though, that Nassau police would still work with ICE where possible.

“We have reviewed this law with the county attorneys, and we looked for every possible way not to comply with this law,” Blakeman told reporters in Mineola. “However, it was concluded that we would have to abide by the law. … I believe in the rule of law, even when it’s a bad law.”

And Blakeman wasn’t the only one upset about the policy: Though sparse, Hochul encountered a few hecklers at the fair, including one woman who called her “a piece of garbage” while referring to the new immigration law.