Don’t Bail Out Farmers Again
In public, President Donald Trump promises that high tariffs will make Americans wealthier than ever.
“We’re going to become so rich we’re not going to know where to spend that money,” he said earlier this month while discussing his tariff plans with reporters.
Behind the scenes, however, the White House is reportedly confronting a very different reality: one in which Trump’s trade war leaves many Americans worse off, with farmers likely to be hit the hardest.
And the White House seems to have a pretty good idea about where some taxpayer money is going to have to be spent.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told reporters last week that the White House has asked her to “have some programs in place that would potentially mitigate any economic catastrophes that could happen to some of our farmers” as a result of a trade war.
As The New York Times notes, it is unclear right now whether that means direct payments to farmers or some more roundabout effort. “We’re working that out right now,” is what Rollins said when asked.
The time to work that out might be running short. Trump has promised to ramp up his trade war with Mexico and Canada in early April, and the administration also plans to start slapping so-called “reciprocal tariffs” on imports from other countries on April 2. As the various trade wars escalate, farmers are likely to be on the front lines—because American agricultural exports are an easy target for retaliatory tariffs from other countries. If that happens, American farm goods could be cut out of global markets and would
Article from Reason.com
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