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US trade war with China may affect poultry farming in Dooly County

USA Today names Dooly County as one of 15 counties that will take the biggest hit from tariffs.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story was based on a USA Today story on a Brookings Institute study speculating on the possible impact of higher tariffs on various counties.

Tyson Chicken has not announced any job cuts at its Vienna plant.

Media Relations Specialist Worth Sparkman would not speculate on how tariffs will impact employment at their plant.

He did say, “that part of Georgia is very important to us”, because of the number of people who work at the plant and the company’s business interests in the area.

President Trump announced that he is considering a $200 billion tariff on Chinese goods, sparking another round of potentially one of the biggest trade wars in economic history.

Many counties will take a major hit from the increased tariffs, Dooly County being one of them.

According to USA Today, a Brookings Institute study said Dooly could be one of the 15 hardest-hit counties in the USA. The study said more than 1,100 jobs there could be at risk if tariffs increase the cost of Tyson's chicken overseas.

With the Tyson Chicken plant located in Vienna, Ga., the increased tariffs on poultry could be detrimental to the town's economy.

The plant has 1,750 employees, which equates to almost half of the town's entire population of 4,000.

Mayor Hobby Stripling said, "They harvest about 1.2 million birds a week out there, and anything that might reduce that number of any consequence will definitely affect the number of employees out there."

The large amount of employees that work at Tyson's plant brings more customers to other local businesses in Vienna. If the tariff causes a cutback in Tyson's workforce, those businesses will take a major loss as well.

Businesses like Emerson Lundy's, who's owned Marise Country Cooking in Vienna for 31 years will be affected. His current location is right down the road from Tyson's plant.

"It would affect us because we got quite a few customers that we feed down there daily," he said, "We would probably have to increase our prices, which is bad for a small town, and Tyson plant is a lot of our business. I'm pretty sure they'll have layoffs behind this and it would be bad for the community."

Tyson sent an official statement saying that higher tariffs will hurt their competitive advantage in exporting markets in foreign countries and they encourage the administration to negotiate long-term agreements that expand market opportunities for all U.S. industries.

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