It’s Gilroy, California. And two Trump administration policies — one on trade, the other on immigration — are having a mixed impact on this agricultural community south of San Francisco.
It’s about 50 degrees outside, but for a moment it looks like it’s snowing. But the morning air is pungent and savory, and those flakes falling from the sky are garlic skin pieces, drifting away from the peeling facility.
Christopher Ranch in Gilroy is the largest garlic producer in the country. Ken Christopher, executive vice president, says it didn’t always look this busy. In the 1990s, he says, the industry was hit hard by cheap Chinese garlic imports.
“It was really hard,” Christopher says. “We’re talking reduction in workforce, we’re talking reduction in work hours, we had furlough days simply just to get through the year.”
This struggle went on for years. Then, in 2016, Donald Trump was elected president. And his stance on Chinese imports was pretty clear: tax them.