Trump Willing To Sacrifice American Rural Communities As Part Of His Trade Wars

There are a lot of farmers losing a lot because of Trump's pig-headed, badly-handled trade wars. Including, presumably, a lot of sleep. Family farms are particularly badly hit and farmers have been losing their land; many more are on the verge of bankruptcy. Soybean farmers have been hit worse than anyone else. There are 11 states that each produce over 100 million bushels of soybeans annually-- Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Indiana, Nebraska, Ohio, Missouri, South Dakota, Arkansas, North Dakota and Kansas. Most of them are red states, but even in the two blue states with massive soybean production, the counties with the soybean farms are red counties. Illinois and Minnesota are the first and second-biggest soybean states. The big 3 soybean counties in Illinois are Trump bastions. Trump's victory margin over Hillary in each:

• Iroquois- 75.3% to 19.3%
• Livingston- 67.5% to 26.5%
• McLean- 46.9% to 45.5%

The big 5 Minnesota soybean counties and their Trump over Hillary wins:

• Redwood- 67.5% to 24.8%
• Renville- 64.3% to 27.8%
• Faribault- 62.9% to 29.0%
• Polk- 60.7% to 31.8%
• Lac Qui Parle- 59.4% to 33.81%

These counties are too red to flip blue. But there are farmers who will not vote for Trump and will not vote for Republicans. Last year, in fact, McLean County in Illinois-- the least red of the big Illinois soybean counties-- went strongly for Democratic challenger Betsy Dirksen Londrigan in her bid to replace GOP incumbent Rodney Davis. It was a tight race, Davis' reelected by around 2,000 votes of over 270,000 cast-- 50.4% to 49.6%. McLean county broke blue-- D+25. Next year Davis could well lose his seat because of underperformance in rural areas that are being devastated by Trump's trade wars. Yesterday, Vox asserted that farmers are losing patience with Trump. And not just soybean farmers.

Trump insists that his trade war will benefit farmers, but it’s actually crushing them. It seems unlikely that China will scrap the 25 percent tariff on American soybeans anytime soon, and now it’s adding higher taxes on American apples, oranges, pork, and almonds, too.

That’s why farmers are freaking out. Some are facing financial ruin now that millions of Chinese consumers, who once bought about 60 percent of American agriculture exports, have stopped buying their products. Exports to China from Minnesota dropped about 25 percent after the first round of tariffs went into effect last year, said Paap, who is president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau.

“The patience of American farmers has worn very thin,” Shayne Isane, who is borrowing money to keep his pork and soybean farm running in northern Minnesota, told me. “If a trade deal can be reached then it was all worth it, but if it doesn’t getting settled soon, it will be disastrous for American farmers.”

Isane, who voted for Trump, told me that the president may lose political support from farmers if the trade dispute continues. “Rural Americans were some of his biggest supporters,” he said. “Now that support is a little tenuous.”

Trump seems to be acutely aware of this, and has taken steps to help farmers who have been hurt by the trade war-- and shore up their support going into the 2020 election campaign. Last year, Trump created a $12 billion bailout program for farmers, and on Monday, he outlined another plan to give them an additional $15 billion.

But it’s not clear if those bailouts will be enough to keep farmers happy. “We don’t want another check from the government,” Isane said. “People don’t realize that once you lose a market, it’s hard to get it back.”

Every year before planting season, US farmers take out loans to cover operating costs. But lately, farmers have been defaulting on their loan payments, and many went out of business last year.

A total of 84 farms in the upper Midwest filed for bankruptcy between July 2017 and June 2018, according to the Federal Reserve of Minneapolis. That’s more than double the number of Chapter 12 filings during the same period in 2013 and 2014 in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana.

Farms that produce corn, soybeans, milk, and beef were already suffering due to low global demand and low prices, according to economists, but Trump’s trade war is ruining them. The problem got so bad that the Trump administration launched a $12 billion aid package for US farmers coping with retaliatory tariffs that foreign countries have imposed on their products.

But that bailout has not been enough to keep farms open. Paap, one of the Minnesota farmers I spoke to, said the money they got from the government last year was barely enough for his family to get by on.

Another bad harvest season would send farmers over the edge. Not to mention the other industries that are getting hit too.

Over the past year, the US has placed about $200 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, in part to make Chinese products more expensive so Americans don’t buy them. The administration has also placed steep tariffs on all imported steel, angering other major U.S. trade partners.

The idea was to level out the trade deficit and make China buy more U.S. goods, but, as expected, China responded by slapping its own tariffs on American imports. And Trump’s steep tariffs on all imported steel and aluminum, which went into effect in March 2018, have led other US trading partners to add their own retaliatory duties on American goods, including dairy, pork, apples, and potatoes.

Auto manufacturers and appliance makers in the U.S. are fuming about the cost of paying more for steel. A few sectors, like the American steel industry, are thrilled about the new taxes on steel from foreign competitors.

But the impact of tariffs on the U.S. agricultural industry is no joke. Prices for agricultural products like soybeans have dropped to a 10-year low since Trump imposed sweeping tariffs. And farmers across different markets have grown increasingly nervous about how their businesses will fare if the trade war continues.

That’s why Trump in July proposed the idea of a government program to stabilize the agriculture industry in three ways: by giving farmers direct cash assistance, buying surplus crops and giving them to food banks, and a vague trade promotion program.

The administration used a Depression-era program to borrow up to $30 billion from the Treasury without congressional approval, according to the Washington Post. In September, the Agriculture Department sent farmers about $12 million in aid.

On Monday, he announced plans for another round of aid-- $15 billion this time. But Trump was either badly mistaken or lied when he said China would pay for the bailout with money from the tariffs. It’s actually businesses and consumers who will end up paying.

But even if these bailouts do keep some farms open, they don’t address the fact that Trump’s trade policies just aren’t working.

...In 2018, America’s trade deficit with China reached an all-time high: $419 billion. That’s a 13 percent increase compared to the previous year. Ford, America’s second-largest car company, said in August that Trump’s tariffs cost the company $1 billion, and the company now expects massive layoffs. GM made a similar announcement a few months later.

This impact of Trump’s trade policies is striking, considering how often he repeated that his goal is to boost US manufacturing. His trade war might help the small US steel industry, but it’s hurting nearly every other sector of the US economy. And now taxpayers are stuck with the bill of Trump’s latest $15 billion bailout.

Still, Trump insists that somehow this is all good for rural America. “Our great Patriot Farmers will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of what is happening now,” Trump announced on Twitter Monday.

So far, though, they’re the biggest losers.

And by targeting apples, almonds, oranges and pork, the Chinese were being very politically strategic. Apples will hurt Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Republican congressmen who could be hurt because of the apple retaliation include Dan Newhouse (WA-04) Chris Collins (NY-27), Elise Stefanik (NY-21), Tom Reed (NY-23), John Katko (NY-24), Fred Upton (MI-06), Justin Amash (MI-03) and Bill Huizenga (MI-02), Lloyd Smucker (PA-11), John Joyce (PA-13), and Duncan Hunter CA-50).

Almond farmers in California aren't going to do Trump and damage but the almond vote is important for Kevin McCarthy, Devin Nunes, Doug LaMalfa and Tom McClintock and votes in almond growing counties could easily cost Nunes and LaMalfa their seats.

Tariffs on oranges are going to sting in Florida, California, Texas and Arizona. The 4 biggest orange-growing counties in Florida all went for Trump in 2016:

• Polk- 55.4% to 41.3%
• Hendry- 55.8% to 41.5%
• Highlands- 64.7% to 32.7%
• DeSoto- 62.7% to 35.0%

Two Republican congressmen could be especially hurt by the tariffs-- Tom Rooney (R-17) and Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25). And Trump's 49.1% to 47.8% win in Florida won't withstand a soybean-sized disaster to the orange industry. In Arizona, the orange industry is now gigantic and it is primarily in Yuma county. Trump won the county nattily-- with just 50.5%. The GOP is extremely worried about losing Arizona. Chinese retaliatory tariffs could do the trick. Last year, Martha McSally lost statewide in her Senate run but won Yuma County with 51.5%. When McCain died she was appointed to his seat and will face the voters again next year. Voters employed by Yuma's orange industry, may not feel well-disposed towards her.

There are 5 states that have pork-producing industries that bring in over a billion annually: Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota, North Carolina and Indiana. It's not just that tariffs on pork could swing Iowa and North Carolina, but it's also which Republican members of Congress are most likely to be hurt by the pork tariffs. These are the 10 biggest pork-producing counties in America, along with their member of Congres:

• Sampson, NC- David Rouzer (R)
• Duplin, NC- David Rouzer (R)
• Texas, OK- Frank Lucas (R)
• Sioux, IA- Steve King (R)
• Washington, IA- (open seat in 2020)
• Martin, MN- Jim Hagedorn (R)
• Plymouth, IA- Steve King (R)
• Lyon, IA- Steve King (R)
• Hardin, IA- Steve King (R)
• Beaver, UT- Chris Stewart (R)

King, Rouzer and Hagedorn could all be vulnerable. Salt-pork? No, but Trump has some salt to rub on the wounds of farmers his tariffs are putting out of business. Chris Sommerfeldt broke the story for the New York Daily News: Trump Administration Showers Brazilian Crooks With $62M Bailout Money Meant For Struggling U.S. Farmers.

The Trump administration has forked over more than $62 million-- taxpayer cash that was supposed to be earmarked for struggling American farmers-- to a massive meatpacking company owned by a couple of corrupt Brazilian brothers.

The Department of Agriculture cut a contract in January to purchase $22.3 million worth of pork from plants operated by JBS USA, a Colorado-based subsidiary of Brazil’s JBS SA, which ranks as the largest meatpacker in the world.

The bailout raised eyebrows from industry insiders at the time, as it was sourced from a $12 billion program meant for American farmers harmed by President Trump’s escalating trade war with China and other countries.

But previously undisclosed purchase reports obtained by the Daily News this week reveal the administration has since issued at least two more bailouts to JBS, even as Trump’s own Justice Department began investigating the meatpacker, whose owners are Joesley and Wesley Batista-- two wealthy brothers who have confessed to bribing hundreds of top officials in Brazil.

Both brothers have spent time in jail over the sweeping corruption scandal.

Local prosecutors rescinded the Batistas’ plea deals last year after accusing them of withholding evidence. The seedy brothers aren’t allowed to leave Brazil as their complex cases go to court.

The Justice Department, meanwhile, is probing JBS for possible violations in the U.S. of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, according to filings in an unrelated court case reviewed by The News. Reuters reported in December that Justice Department investigators interviewed the Batistas in Brazil late last year as part of that investigation.

Nonetheless, Trump’s Agriculture Department issued $14.5 million in bailout cash for pork products from JBS in February and another $25.6 million earlier this month, totaling more than $62.4 million, according to the purchase reports.

The sheer size of the payouts stoked outrage from industry watchdogs, who question how subsidizing a deep-pocketed, Brazilian-owned company would help farmers in the American heartland.

“Why is the USDA bailing out plants operated by JBS, the largest meatpacker in the world, with a program designed to help domestic companies and producers under economic duress?” said Tony Corbo, a lobbyist at Food & Water Watch, noting that the meat giant reported a net income of $273 million for the first quarter of 2019.

Moreover, JBS appears to have benefited from the trade tensions between Beijing and Washington that the bailouts are supposed to mitigate.

The company’s exports to China ballooned to more than 24% in 2018, compared to less than 21% the previous year, according to public records, raising questions about the need for the Trump subsidy.

“This company does not seem to be hurting,” Corbo said.

By comparison, a similar Trump bailout to Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, which is owned by a Chinese firm, was cancelled last year amid pushback from members of Congress that money meant for American farmers was ending up in the hands of foreigners.

...“It is clear the president is not the least bit knowledgeable about trade policy, nor aware of the chaos his failed approach has caused‚” said Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who introduced a bill earlier this year restricting the administration’s bailouts to American-owned companies.

“We now know that tens of millions of these dollars went to large, multinational corporations-- including Brazilian-owned JBS-- who are racking up profits while family farmers face collapse. That is outrageous.”

In addition to payment restrictions, DeLauro’s bill would require the Agriculture Department release explanations for its bailouts.

“Their incompetence and lack of transparency has shown that they cannot be trusted to get this right,” she said.