North Carolina’s Republican senators, Ted Budd and Thom Tillis, are listening to calls to stand for their state’s tobacco farmers to keep duty drawback from being repealed in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“One of the provisions tucked away in the House tax bill is a tax hike that would decimate North Carolina’s tobacco farmers,” Tillis wrote last week on X. “I stand with our hardworking growers, and I’m pushing to get this hidden tax removed from the One Big Beautiful Bill.”
With President Donald Trump’s use of tariffs to rebalance trade globally, duty drawback lets U.S. exporters recover tariffs on imported goods used in products that are later exported.
It has been a policy that has enabled North Carolina agriculture to thrive in international markets.
The effort to lobby North Carolina’s GOP senators against repealing duty drawback has been led by Our Ag Future’s ad campaign this month, and a new ad is thanking Budd and Tillis for standing for the tariff drawback provision for the state’s farmers.
“Thank Sens. Budd and Tillis for protecting duty drawback to ensure a bright future for our North Carolina farmers,” the 30-second “Bright Future” ad concludes.
An earlier ad featured Johnston County, North Carolina, tobacco farmer Brandon Batten urging Congress to stop the repeal of duty drawback in the OBBB.
“This is not just an attack on tobacco; this is an attack on agriculture and our rural communities and economies,” Batten says in the ad.
“Sen. Tillis, Sen. Budd, reject this repeal of duty drawback and support North Carolina tobacco farmers.”
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