And he’d be worse in a second term
Although rural areas are Trump country and US agriculture tends to support conservatives, Trump was an unmitigated disaster for much of US agriculture. US is a massive agriculture exporter, so farmers live and die on trade and especially exports to China. US trade policy is a form of US agriculture policy, and vice-versa. Look at this chart:
China’s imports of soybeans have been growing rapidly since the early 2000s. For much of that time, exports from both the US and Brazil were growing roughly in parallel. But around 2017, US soybean exports fell off while China’s imports and Brazil’s exports kept growing. Why? Guess what happened in 2017?
Trump picked a trade war with China. “Trade wars are good, and easy to win.” China opted to buy Brazilian beans and US producers had to find other markets. Even after Trump left office, exports to China haven’t recovered.
Trump is delusional about who pays for trade wars. He thinks a tariff is paid by the exporting country. But it’s not, US consumers suffer and pay higher costs. Trump used most of the revenues as ad hoc payments to try to make it up to farmers: he threw more than $60 billion at them to keep them quiet. What was accomplished? But, the damage to US exporters will last a lot longer and farmers will have to live with it.
This year, US will harvest a bumper crop. Prices are low. But exports are at record lows China has no interest. Losing their biggest customer is grim for US soy farmers.
Trump has promised more tariffs and trade wars if he’s elected again. US farmers ought to have a think on that.
ENDS///
