President Donald Trump's agricultural policies are leaving one of his staunchest groups of supporters, farmers, in the lurch. As they increasingly turn against him because the Iran war, tariffs and mass deportations, a conservative newspaper — The Wall Street Journal — warns that he is leaving Republicans overall "in danger."
"While Mr. Trump can claim all he wants that foreigners pay his tariffs, Deere & Co. said on an earnings call last month that it expects 'direct tariff expense of approximately $1.1 billion for the fiscal year,'" the editorial board wrote on Wednesday. "That figure doesn’t include the refunds the company is getting for the tariffs that the Supreme Court held illegal, but it’s a show of the burden. Mr. Trump’s border taxes filter through supply chains to all kinds of parts and equipment, making it harder for farmers when they buy tractors, combines, harvesters and planters."
They added, "Likewise, Mr. Trump can say over and over that the U.S. doesn’t need anything from Canada, but the Farm Belt knows it depends on potash fertilizer from America’s northern neighbor. Mr. Trump’s latest 50 percent tariffs on Canada specifically didn’t apply to potash, which ought to be telling. Some Canadians, however, have debated using their potash as leverage against the U.S. if trade tensions escalate."
Overall they concluded that, as a result of how Trump's policies are hurting farmers, "Republicans are now in political danger in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, states that 'oughta be fat guy layups for us,' as Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy put it last week."
They added, "If the administration wants farming in the U.S. to be easier, then stop the policies that make it harder."
Speaking with AlterNet in September, Dr. Karl Widerquist, a Georgetown University in Qatar professor, explained how Trump's policies are hurting farmers.
"The supply chains go back and forth across the border — you've gotta know what's going back and forth across the border," Widerquist told AlterNet. "You've gotta really be an expert in very specific industries. Some goods might pass the border three and four times. You'd take oil from Canada and put it in a combine in the United States to make wheat, and you send it up to Canada for processing, send it back to the United States to sell it as food, not to mention adding a bunch of packaging who knows where. You have a really complex supply chain. So tariffs aren't as simple as these. Used to be it was our industries and their industries, put a tariff on their industries, that's gonna help our industries, at least in that sector."
“Y'all know the Farm Bill is socialism; y'all know that, right?” Michael Steele said on MS NOW at the time. “I mean, when you start talking about socialism, it's socialism for you. It's not socialism when I'm accessing the system and I'm getting that SNAP check, and I'm getting that welfare check, and I'm getting that free lunch program, and I'm getting those things that, because I cannot afford it, are part of a safety net. And I wish we would just fundamentally get off our lazy behinds and start understanding how this government uses all of those tools to provide for its citizens.”
