Hi-ho, the derry-o!
The farmer takes a bribe.
Again.
If you're from around here -- the middle of Middle America -- odds are
you might remember 2017 and 2018 as the year Donald Trump fucked over the
American farmer.
And as with all Trump-related disasters, it all started with a ridiculous
lie told to stupid people
From The Washington Post,
October 24, 2017:
...more than 75 percent of rural voters in the Farm Belt cast their ballots for Trump in the last presidential election. They cheered Trump’s promise to support the Renewable Fuel Standard (which props up the ethanol industry), his pledge to eliminate estate taxes on inherited farmland and roll back regulations on farm runoff, and, most of all, they liked his tough talk on trade policy.
Economic costs of the trade warThe trade war caused economic pain on both sides and led to diversion of trade flows away from both China and the United States. As described by Heather Long at the Washington Post, “U.S. economic growth slowed, business investment froze, and companies didn’t hire as many people. Across the nation, a lot of farmers went bankrupt, and the manufacturing and freight transportation sectors have hit lows not seen since the last recession. Trump’s actions amounted to one of the largest tax increases in years.”
A September 2019 study by Moody’s Analytics found that the trade war had already cost the U.S. economy nearly 300,000 jobs and an estimated 0.3% of real GDP. Other studies put the cost to U.S. GDP at about 0.7%. A 2019 report from Bloomberg Economics estimated that the trade war would cost the U.S. economy $316 billion by the end of 2020, while more recent research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Columbia University found that U.S. companies lost at least $1.7 trillion in the price of their stocks as a result of U.S. tariffs imposed on imports from China...
In 2020, Trump tried to unshit the bed by signing a trade truce with
China which Brookings described as:
In other words, Beijing essentially paid for the deal with a promise of a windfall in purchases of American goods. It appears that President Trump accepted an IOU as a declaration of victory.
But you know what? It turns out there's a fix for that.
Bribery!
Specifically, taking tens of billions of your tax dollars and handing it
over to farmers who, by substantial majorities, voted for Donald Trump in
2016, and whose livelihood was damn near destroyed by the aforementioned
lunatic agricultural trade war Trump started with China.
From Politico,
July 14, 2020:
‘Here’s your check’: Trump’s massive payouts to farmers will be hard to pull backThe president was already spending double his predecessor to spare farmers the cost of his trade war. Now the price is reaching unsustainable levels.Government payments to farmers have surged to historic levels under President Donald Trump as the Agriculture Department floods the industry with cash to stem the financial losses from Trump’s tariff fights and the coronavirus pandemic.
But as agriculture grows more reliant on unprecedented taxpayer support, farm policy experts and watchdog groups warn the subsidies are growing too big and too fast, with no strings attached and little oversight from Congress — and that Washington could have a difficult time shutting off the spigot.
Government payments to farmers have surged to historic levels under President Donald Trump as the Agriculture Department floods the industry with cash to stem the financial losses from Trump’s tariff fights and the coronavirus pandemic.
But as agriculture grows more reliant on unprecedented taxpayer support, farm policy experts and watchdog groups warn the subsidies are growing too big and too fast, with no strings attached and little oversight from Congress — and that Washington could have a difficult time shutting off the spigot...
OK, fine. On the one hand Trump treated them like whores.
But on the other hand, he did leave the money on the dresser with a
generous tip.
And now, everybody knew where everybody stood..
So, having taken all of that in and begun to flourish again under the
Biden administration (From
NBC News) --
Farmers flourish under Biden, see recovery from Trump-era trade warsThe prices of corn and soybeans have increased and demand is up for American exports...."We had farm income that was up by a pretty fair amount in 2021, almost to the record level of 2013, but not quite," said Patrick Westhoff, director of the University of Missouri’s Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute. "Part of that, of course, was continuing government payments, but there was a very strong recovery in both crop and livestock prices last year."
Soy and corn prices, two of the largest cash crops in the United States, have suffered slightly, falling below $9 and above $3 a bushel, respectively, during the pandemic. Now, exports have had an increase in demand, in part because of exports to China and poor weather affecting South American producers. Soy was up to $14 in 2021 and corn is projected to continue above $5 in 2022.
-- have American farmers finally figured out who's actually on their
side? Who's word they can actually trust?
Of course not. Turns out that 30 years of rural Hate Radio
pumping Rush Limbaugh and all his imitators into the skulls American
farmers has built them into some of the stupidest, rage-drunk idiots on
Earth.
From Investigate Midwest,
November 13, 2024 (with emphasis added):
Trump support grew in America’s top farming counties despite first-term trade warFarming-dependent counties rallied behind Trump with an average of nearly 78% support.America’s most farming-dependent counties overwhelmingly backed President-elect Donald Trump in this year’s election by an average of 77.7%.
Trump...increased his support this year among farming-dependent counties by nearly two percentage points compared to 2020.
Some political observers questioned whether Trump’s support would wane among farmers after his first-term trade war, which led to increased prices and a drop in agricultural exports. During the campaign, Trump promised a return to high tariffs if given a second term.
“His policies didn’t do us any good; his tariffs didn’t do us any good,” Lance Lillibridge, an Iowa farmer, told Investigate Midwest.
Not only did Trump increase his support among farming-dependent counties, but more than 100 of those counties supported him with at least 80% of their vote.
And so here we are again, the same thing but different.
From CNBC,
April 26, 2025:
Agriculture isn’t nearing trade war tariffs crisis, ‘it is full blown crisis already’ farmers sayThe global backlash to President Trump’s tariffs is punishing U.S. agriculture, especially a decline in Chinese buying of U.S. farm products.
A leading agriculture exports group says “massive” losses are already racking up at farms, with cancelled orders, pricing pressure as demand slumps and layoffs, as China stops buying products from pork to hay and straw, and lumber.
“No one can replace all the volume that China buys,” one farm operator reported.
But don't worry kids. Trump stands ready once again to steal
billions of your tax dollars, and hand them over to the same inbred
meathead farmers who voted for him.
Again.
From
Axios:
Trump ready to bail out farmers amid trade war squeeze, Rollins saysPresident Trump is prepared to bail out American farmers if the trade war continues squeezing commodity exports, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said Sunday.Why it matters: Exports of key commodities are plunging, particularly soybean and pork sales to China, threatening tens of billions of dollars in farm income.
I Am The Liberal Media.
7 comments:
If the Chinese find new sources for their agricultural imports, farmers are going to need bailout indefinitely but at best they can hope for a short term bailout and then it'll be off the plank when someone notices that the USG is paying farmers for nothing.
So who won that Trump / GOP trade war with China?
Last amount of Farm bail outs total I found was at $38 billion.
I remember the farmers telling news reporters how they do not want a bail out (but they will take it)
Socialism? Or Bribe?
That sweet sweet other people's money the same farmers were upset at other people getting.
After losing their trade sales to China, not one of those farmers got out off their tractor to find a new consumer. No, not even Trump's Government. No boot strap pulling required here.
GOP has already worked out coming new bail outs of socialism for the same farmers. They are the new welfare queens of the fields.
If anyone noticed even with the bail outs, farm products prices for consumers, when up.
I need a bail out/ reimbursement from the Government, I had to get Geek squad Special Agent to remove Trump's Sec of ,limitary secrets leaks signal chat off my electronic devices . I was being overwhelmed with classified military information.
No I need to be repaid for my part in securing the Nations defense secrets.
And in other news it tool lees than a week from the hiring of one of the political editors of the NYT at the Minnesota Star Tribune to find a magic ruralism piece on the front page of the Sunday paper. Of course, there was no reference to the steady media diet that the rubes consume; nor was there any attempt to decode their 'anxiety' into the hate and racism of which is a true expression.
How much did big ag get from the last bailout?
"The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major's father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa."
Trump has given farmers a precious gift. The specter of starving African babies.
Hey DG! Here's a joke from the 70s. Q: How do you bankrupt a farmer? A: Run over his mailbox!
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