Governor sees ‘opportunity’ for Wyoming in Trump tariff war. Economist sees ‘disaster.’

by Dustin Bleizeffer, WyoFile

Gov. Mark Gordon said he sees “opportunity” for Wyoming in President Donald Trump’s tariff wars. At a press conference last week, he echoed the Wyoming congressional delegation’s praise for Trump’s economic policies as a tool to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. and level the nation’s trade imbalance with much of the world.

“The Trump tariffs have kind of shuffled the deck, in a way, and I think it’s a great opportunity for Wyoming to be able to pick up the game,” Gordon told reporters while highlighting his April trade mission to Japan and Taiwan. “Taiwan very much understood that they can buy more [U.S.] energy and that will help their situation in the trade deficit.”

But southwest Wyoming, the world’s largest exporter of natural soda ash, along with agricultural producers, businesses reliant on tourism and natural resource extractive industries across the state — as well as ordinary Equality State consumers of almost anything — have cause for concern, according to one Wyoming economist.

“There’s just no good way to spin the Trump administration’s economic policies in the short term,” University of Wyoming Associate Professor of Economics Rob Godby told WyoFile. “They’ve been disastrous, and they’re going to be disastrous.” 

The global oil market dominates much of the world’s economy and plays an outsized role in the nation’s economic pulse, especially Wyoming’s, Godby noted. So far, the market’s reaction is pointing to economic decline. That’s bad for Wyoming’s economy across the board, he said, and portends lower revenues to the state’s coffers.

Godby also serves on the state’s Consensus Revenue Estimating Group, which consists of the state’s top bean-counters tasked with estimating revenues to fund state and local governments. While tourism and agriculture play vital roles in the state’s revenue picture, Godby and his fellow CREG members closely monitor coal, oil and natural gas. 

In addition to providing more than $2.4 billion in state revenues in 2023, the oil and natural gas industry supported nearly 59,000 direct and indirect jobs in the state, according to the Petroleum Association of Wyoming. But U.S. oil prices have declined since Jan. 20, when Trump began his second term in the White House, slipping by about 20% to around $56 per barrel over the weekend.

“I would say that the biggest effect on our revenues is really the indirect effect that will be caused by world oil prices, which is really driving down [Wyoming] oil revenues, especially in the last month and a half,” Godby said. “We’re not quite seeing it yet in terms of reported numbers, but we know it’s going to hit us because these prices are well below what we expected.” 

The CREG group is on the front lines of measuring Wyoming’s vulnerability in international trade and the overall U.S. economy, according to Gordon’s office. Gordon’s Communications Director Michael Pearlman told WyoFile, “We’re monitoring the tariff situation closely, which is constantly changing.”

Meantime, there are more acute concerns for Wyoming regarding Trump’s tariffs and potential retaliatory responses among U.S. trade partners, Godby said.

Trona and soda ash

Trona mined in Wyoming is processed into “natural” soda ash — a key component in the production of glass, baking soda and myriad other products. Wyoming’s trona and soda ash industry employs more than 2,000 workers, compared to about 4,100 direct jobs in Wyoming coal mining, according to the Wyoming Mining Association.

By far, soda ash is the state’s biggest foreign export commodity in terms of sales. Of Wyoming’s $2 billion in total exports in 2024, soda ash accounted for about $1.3 billion, according to Godby. China, Trump’s primary target in his tariff wars, typically accounts for about 10% of those soda ash purchases.

If the industry were to lose that 10%, it would be a significant blow, Godby said. What’s worse is the possibility that tariff wars might give a price advantage to synthetic soda ash, which Wyoming does not produce, and put a drag on exports to other nations.

“That could be a really significant impact on our [soda ash] exports,” he said, adding that it might even dampen plans for major expansions of trona mining and soda ash refining operations in the region.

WE Soda’s Project West, a multi-billion dollar trona solution-mine expansion project now under construction near Granger, will create 2,000 temporary construction jobs, more than 400 permanent jobs and boost annual production by 3 million metric tons, according to the company. Pacific Soda’s proposed Dry Creek Trona Mine Project south of Green River, which has also crossed several regulatory approval milestones, would bring in another 2,000 construction jobs and create about 300 full-time jobs, according to the company. 

“This vital development [the Dry Creek Trona Mine] will create hundreds of good-paying jobs for hardworking Wyoming families while strengthening our domestic supply chain for essential minerals that keep costs lower at the store for everyday Americans,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis said in a prepared statement last week.

While the state’s trona and soda ash producers have been very “bullish” regarding exports in recent years, global dynamics for the commodities could change drastically if Trump’s trade wars escalate, according to Godby. Though the industry is not among the top three major influencers regarding the state’s overall revenue picture, “it does affect southwest Wyoming,” he said.

Though the industry may struggle in terms of past expectations to increase exports, Gordon said he hopes Trump’s policies might actually result in bringing glass manufacturing, which relies on soda ash, back to the U.S. and for the first time in Wyoming.

“This is a long shot, but we’re really talking about bringing in glass manufacturers,” Gordon said, noting that he and his team visited with glass manufacturer Corning while in Taiwan. “We talked about the possibility of being able to locate manufacturing here — a longtime dream of people in Wyoming. It may be a little bit more of an opportunity now with the backdrop of those tariffs.”

Oh, Canada, and China

Wyoming’s other vulnerability in international tariff wars is its reliance on Canada, the state’s largest international trading partner. The nation to the north accounts for about 20% of the state’s exports and 55% of imports, according to Godby. That translates into significant exposure for multiple goods, including robust trade of agricultural, manufacturing and heavy machinery components that both nations rely on in their natural resource extractive industries.

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