Trump's Trade War Is Hurting Red-State Farmers--and Ripping Their GOP Senators Apart

[babylonsister]

Trump’s Trade War Is Hurting Red-State Farmers—and Ripping Their GOP Senators Apart
Lawmakers disagree about using government subsidies to quell tariff woes.
Tom Philpott
Jun. 26, 2018 3:42 PM


Having yet again teed up a multi-front trade war with the United States’ biggest agricultural trading partners—Mexico, China, Canada, and the European Union—President Donald Trump’s agricultural policy team is talking tough. Singling out China in a Monday USA Today op-ed, US Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue declared that if “China does not soon mend its ways, we will quickly begin fulfilling our promise to support [US] producers, who have become casualties of these disputes.”

Perdue wouldn’t say exactly what form the support would take, noting that it’s “not good practice to open our playbook while the opposing team is watching.” But he appears to be suggesting that he’ll soon be hitting up the US Treasury and paying farmers, directly or indirectly, to offset sales lost to foreign buyers retaliating against Trump’s threatened tariffs. Despite his shrewd reticence in the USA Today piece, Perdue has been mulling such a program, according to Jim Wiesemeyer, Washington analyst for the trade journal Pro Farmer.

According to Wiesemeyer, Trump’s aides are looking at ways to use the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC), a division of the USDA created during the Great Depression, to “offer a financial backstop for farmers.” The agency can borrow as much as $30 billion from the Treasury for the purpose, he says. Here’s how it could look:

USDA could direct the CCC to purchase soybeans to buoy farmers’ revenues. The CCC is able to assist through loans, purchases, payments and other operations. The CCC Act also authorizes the sale of agricultural commodities to other government agencies and to foreign governments and the donation of food to domestic, foreign, or international relief agencies

But not everyone in Trump’s party supports the strategy of launching trade wars that hurt farmers’ bottom lines and then opening the Treasury to offset their losses. According to a Monday Politico piece, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), a powerful member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, “told reporters during his weekly ag briefing last week that Trump pointed to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue before telling a group of governors and lawmakers the federal government would subsidize any losses faced by farmers due to tariffs.”

Grassley ain’t having it. “I can also say that’s not what my farmers in Iowa want—help from the federal treasury,” Grassley told Politico. And he “reiterated his displeasure with the idea to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross at the Senate hearing on the tariffs last week, ” the publication adds.

In other words, the large-scale farmers in states like Iowa, which Trump won in 2016, want an end to the trade wars—not more politically fraught government payouts.

more...

https://www.motherjones.com/food/2018/06/senator-chuck-grassley-trump-china-trade-war-subsidies-government/

[eleny]

1. Well, so be it!

They laid down with a dog and woke up covered in fleas and shit. I hope they can act civil about it.

[beachbum bob]

2. You attack GOP on basis of who do you trust...the options are countless

[Iliyah]

3. I don't care, do U

[dalton99a]

4. They knowingly and willfully voted for the shit show.

[Kittycow]

5. There's another $30 billion they'll take out of SS to cover the bail-out.

[babylonsister]

6. That's one thing that worries me. They're

acting like "our" money grows on trees.

[Kittycow]

7. My wish is a bill passed mandating SS be paid back from previous administration.

A girl can dream.

[Fred Sanders]

10. Funny how it is immoral that Canada supports its dairy industry with federal loans for family farms,

and they really are family farms, but AOK for American farmers...?

By the way Canada is a net importer of American dairy products...same as steel...and Wisoncin produces more milk than all of Canada.

The fascists needed to be slapped with facts after every lie.

[sinkingfeeling]

8. Good.

[Gothmog]

9. Soy beans could affect 2018 election results

Link to tweet

[jberryhill]

11. Womp womp

[roamer65]

12. Kill all agricultural subsidies.

Make them suffer.

[ProudLib72]

14. +1

Kill big agriculture for good!

[Ilsa]

13. IQ45's zero tolerance at the border is affecting farmers also.

I listened to a telephone town hall with our congressman, and a caller said he was a farmer. Said the machines can only do so much, human hands are needed for harvesting certain crops, and he can't find anyone to hire. He the locals have no interest in doing that kind of work, and he doesn't know how he's going to get his crop harvested.

[Leghorn21]

17. Absolutely, Ilsa - I was waiting for word of food shortages last spring/summer due to lack of

harvesters, but it didn’t happen in a big way...this year? We’ll see...I did read a month or so ago that the Chesapeake Bay (sp) crabbing industry was hurting for help, and was experiencing a 40% drop in revenue...my dad was from there and man did we love those crabs...

*sigh*

[meadowlander]

15. Nobody knew trade was so complicated.

[msongs]

16. no welfare for red state farmers nt