Trade wars between the United States and much of the world are expected to inflict more pain on Kansas businesses and consumers in coming months, especially if President Donald Trump adds to his list of taxes on imports.

Tariffs are explained different ways by different politicians, but they are basically taxes imposed on things that companies want to import into the United States. These taxes can be applied to raw materials, manufacturing parts, livestock, fiber, grains, food, retail goods, professional services – whatever U.S. officials dictate.

The purpose of tariffs historically was to raise revenue for the federal government and to protect American businesses from overseas competition. Trump is not the first president to impose tariffs, but he is the first in modern history to use them as his go-to, all-purpose tool.

Since taking office, Trump has issued a nonstop series of threats and has imposed numerous tariffs. Our top three trading partners – Canada, Mexico and China – all have been targeted with higher tariffs, none of which was approved by Congress.

Also, Trump decided tariffs should not be applied evenly. For example, tariffs were slapped on steel and aluminum imported by U.S. companies, but Trump exempted some nations and some companies. So steel imports from Canada and Mexico went down, as U.S. businesses instead bought from companies in Brazil and South Korea, which were exempted.

Often those countries targeted with tariffs retaliate with tariffs on U.S. exports, such as grain, beef and other goods. So Kansans not only pay more for imports, but they find export markets closed or damaged.

Initially, Trump said his tariffs would eliminate the trade deficit. The president said his policies would ensure that the United States exported more goods than it imported. Federal reports show the trade deficit is at least 15 percent higher than it was before Trump took office.

For Kansas, the numbers show faltering export markets that affect both agriculture and manufacturing.

Because U.S. farmers raise more wheat, corn, soybeans, cotton and livestock than Americans can consume, they need international markets to stay in business. Demand for U.S. agricultural goods had grown significantly since the approval of NAFTA in the 1990s. That multi-national pact and others helped agriculture markets grow internationally.

Overall, Americans import more than they export, but the United States exports more ag products than it imports. At least for now. The once-big plus could turn into a negative if we continue to lose overseas business.

U.S. ag exports are down 7 percent for the fiscal year, compared to fiscal year 2018, according to federal data.

Tariffs aren’t the only reason for declining ag exports, but Trump’s trade wars have created unstable ground for American farmers. Countries weary of dealing with higher taxes, uncertainty and U.S. threats are turning elsewhere for more reliable business relationships.

In response to the damage caused farmers by tariffs, Trump has announced at least two rounds of special payments to producers. Government checks are no substitute for growing export markets. They seem more like the kind of socialist programs about which Republicans used to complain.

The same sort of disconnect between principle and practice is seen as Republicans claim to oppose tax increases. Yet, they support tariffs, which are a series of new taxes foisted on American businesses and consumers.

In a piece for Bloomberg, Laura Davison writes that, for many Americans, tariffs have wiped out savings from the Republican tax cuts. The average American family saved roughly $930 because of the tax cuts, according to the piece, but they have paid about $830 more for goods because of tariffs.

Despite Trump’s rhetoric, the nation has, overall, little to show for the trade wars it started. The new NAFTA (called USCMA) is pretty much the old NAFTA. China will always present complex challenges that are better handled through multi-national pacts and oversight from the World Trade Organization.

Yes, Trump’s approach has produced notable winners and losers. They have been selected not through competition in a free-market environment, but by Trump, who plays favorites and keeps changing the rules.

In Kansas, farmers, businesses and consumers are among the losers. We are paying higher taxes, and in return, we are subjected to more threats, higher costs and shrinking demand for Kansas products.

Even after hundreds of studies about how false information is spread on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other venues, Americans continue to spread inaccurate claims.

Much of the time, those who distribute misinformation to friends and followers are unwitting. They just pass along claims that bolster their own view of the world, without checking whether they’re true. That view may be that Muslims are murderous zealots, or that Republicans are greedy demons or that vaccines cause autism. Truth is less important than the message they want to send.

That’s not surprising. We accept the same low standard from President Donald Trump, whose record of lies is unprecedented. As our tolerance of dishonesty grows, we rationalize deceit as a means to persuade people to think the way we do.

But if we aren’t basing our opinions on facts, on credible and honest information, our opinions are worthless.

Forming judgments and views based on faulty information makes it likely that we, as individuals and as a society, will take steps that are ineffective or even counterproductive. It would be like a doctor treating you for measles when you have cancer.

Good decisions require factual information and sound data, but separating fact from fiction online can sometimes seem impossible. There are, however, sources that can help.

Fact-checking organizations have played an increasingly important role in helping Americans figure out, for example, whether to believe Bernie Sanders’ claims about health care and President Donald Trump’s claims about immigration.

Some of the best include Snopes.com, the oldest of the fact-checking sites. It started in 1994, before most of us were surfing the web.

Another good site is PolitiFact, owned by a Florida-based nonprofit, the Poynter Institute for Media Studies.

There’s also FactCheck.org, part of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The center was established with funds from Walter Annenberg, who was known for his magazine empire and his close friendship with President Ronald Reagan.

Other good sources for checking information include the Washington Post’s Fact Checker and Associated Press’ fact-checking items.

While fact-checking sites are a good means of verifying information, it’s also helpful to use news sources that are reliable. Newspapers and their websites, for example, are relatively solid.

That doesn’t mean they don’t make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. But newspapers as a whole have a good record for delivering objective, accurate information.

A study by RAND, a global policy nonprofit, found that newspapers have changed little over the past 20 years in terms of how they report the news.

As stated in a piece for Nieman Lab, part of the Nieman Foundation at Harvard, the study found: “Newspaper reporting is largely the same as it was in the past, at least when it comes to front-page stories. …”

The same study found that TV network news has changed significantly. Since 2000, broadcast news reporting has moved from precise, academic language to reporting with personal flair.

“It becomes more conversational … This also has meant more subjectivity: less straight reporting of preplanned stories, and more conversation among newscasters, between newscasters and expert guests, and between newscasters and the audience. Such conversations are interactive and feature personal perspectives …”

The move to subjective and personality-driven news was even more marked in cable TV, the study found.

“Prime-time cable programming is characterized by more-argumentative language, more-personal and subjective exposition of topics, more use of opinion and personal interaction, and more-dogmatic positions for and against specific positions,” the study found.

That means TV viewers must determine not only what’s true, but also what spin TV personalities are applying to the news.

A Pew Research Center study found that older Americans rely on TV for much of their news, while those younger than 50 tend to use a variety of sources. Checking different sites can help determine both accuracy and lend perspective, if news consumers are savvy about what qualifies as reliable media.

Staying informed about events and issues shouldn’t be so hard. But improvement will come only when Americans stop shrugging off dishonesty among their political leaders – and start being more discerning about the claims they believe and spread.

“Well, it’s a different world than when we were kids.”

It’s a phrase most of us have used or heard. Recently, a friend used it as a group of us casually talked about the news, in particular about a Kentucky toddler who had wandered from home and was found days later, safe, a mile or so away.

That led to a discussion of how much more freedom kids used to have to roam the neighborhood, to play unsupervised, to live without constant parental monitoring, in person or electronically.

What we hear is that the world’s just not safe anymore. But the facts show that almost all our communities are safer than they used to be.

Granted, the world doesn’t seem as safe, in part because technology allows us to hear about every crime, accident and tragedy. We’re perpetually pounded with sensationalized information all day long on social media and many TV shows.

On top of the wide and frequent dissemination of scary stories is the sense that unless you are hovering – texting, tracking and ever-present – you are a subpar parent.

I don’t have kids, so I understand my opinions are suspect, but it does seem that parenting decisions should be based on reality, rather than on misperceptions and fear.

And reality shows that for U.S. children, the world is pretty safe.

For instance, data collected by federal agencies show that crime rates started rising in the United States about 1970. They peaked in the 1990s and have been on the decline – with some bumps and blips – since then.

FBI reports show violent crime rates dropped 49 percent between 1993 and 2017, according to a blog from the Pew Research Center. The same blog says annual scientific surveys of more than 90,000 households conducted by the federal government found a 74 percent drop in violent crime rates during the same span.

And today’s world is much healthier and safer in other ways.

In a 2015 column for the Washington Post, Christopher Ingraham cites some of the conditions that have improved for American children: “In 1935, for instance, there were nearly 450 deaths for every 100,000 children aged 1 to 4. Today there are fewer than 30 deaths for every 100,000 kids in that age group – more than a tenfold decrease. “

Vaccinations are chief among the reasons so many more children grow up to be productive adults compared to the 1930s.  But disease prevention and better healthcare are only part of the story. Better education, safer vehicles and car seats, and more attention to safety everywhere also play a role.

Crime as a risk to children has always been relatively low – and it’s certainly not the peril that it’s hyped up to be now.

In the 1980s, highly publicized reports of kidnapped children prompted national initiatives. But of the thousands of cases of missing children reported every year, a tiny percentage – less than 1 percent – are cases in which children are abducted by strangers.

Well over 90 percent of the children reported missing run away from home. The next largest group are kidnapped by family members. So while kidnappings by strangers do occur, they are extremely rare.

You could argue that the world is safer for children now precisely because of the increased vigilance of parents, that lots of good parenting led to improvements.

But not all parents would agree. Some have launched a counter-movement. Called free-range parents, they advocate more independence for children, arguing that kids need opportunities to gain skills and confidence to succeed as adults.

Even as the debate continues, most of us can agree that extremes on either end – hovering or hands-off – are harmful.

It is worth noting that at a time when conditions are improving for most children, death rates for some adults – particularly those between 25 and 34 – are increasing, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Suicide, diabetes, accidents and drug overdoses are all causes of death that have risen in recent years.

To the extent that good parenting means helping children learn how to make good decisions for themselves and others, those are numbers worth pondering.