Posted on 08/08/2018 8:58:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
President Donald Trump is clearly concerned about the plight of American farmers. He pushed the Department of Agriculture to make available up to $12 billion of temporary relief to those farms caught in the middle of his tariff war starting this Labor Day.
Its laudable that he wants to address this problem, but lets remember that it was a problem of his own creation.
America is a breadbasket to much of the world because of our exceptional farmland. We have about two-and-a-half times as much arable land as does China, for instance, with about the same landmass.
That means exports are going to be a big part of what American farmers produce. And lo, fully 20 percent of farm revenues are from produce sales in foreign markets.
So when President Trump started imposing steel and aluminum tariffs on other countries, what was the literal low-lying fruit that those governments targeted for retaliatory tariffs? Thats right, American produce.
Farmers have contracts in foreign markets that were disrupted by this back-and-forth trade-warring. Many can't afford to fully harvest their produce this year and are having a hard time selling what crops they do have. In some sad cases, crops simply rot in the fields.
It makes sense that our government would compensate them for this loss, but the thing that farmers want long-term is not compensation but contracts via open, stable markets the kind that the president is doing so much to disrupt
President Donald Trump is clearly concerned about the plight of American farmers. He pushed the Department of Agriculture to make available up to $12 billion of temporary relief to those farms caught in the middle of his tariff war starting this Labor Day.
Its laudable that he wants to address this problem, but lets remember that it was a problem of his own creation.
America is a breadbasket to much of the world because of our exceptional farmland. We have about two-and-a-half times as much arable land as does China, for instance, with about the same landmass.
That means exports are going to be a big part of what American farmers produce. And lo, fully 20 percent of farm revenues are from produce sales in foreign markets.
So when President Trump started imposing steel and aluminum tariffs on other countries, what was the literal low-lying fruit that those governments targeted for retaliatory tariffs? Thats right, American produce.
Farmers have contracts in foreign markets that were disrupted by this back-and-forth trade-warring. Many can't afford to fully harvest their produce this year and are having a hard time selling what crops they do have. In some sad cases, crops simply rot in the fields.
It makes sense that our government would compensate them for this loss, but the thing that farmers want long-term is not compensation but contracts via open, stable markets the kind that the president is doing so much to disrupt
Trade-warring and the retaliatory tariffs that those conflicts produce do not have a good effect on American produce and related industries. Just in recent days, weve seen reports that wheat farmers, hog farmers, soybean farmers, almond farmers, beer brewers, lobstermen, dock workers, and so many others are being affected.
The good news is that most of the damage isnt permanent. The broader economy is booming. If President Trump reverses course and markets open up again, many of the job losses that have already occurred or are imminent can be reversed. The damage can be undone or mitigated.
But if we have to go through another year of this, temporary farm aid simply will not cut it. Much farmland will be turned over to development or be reclaimed by nature. What crops are left will rot in even greater numbers and the rest of the world will find a way to replace American produce in their markets.
The writer of this article is looking through the WRONG end of the binoculars.
I was thinking about it today on my way into work listening the Andrew Klavan show from yesterday, and he was talking about the lack of introspection on the Left.
The way Andrew Klavan described the thought processes of the Left, I am certain, they would apply to me without a second thought. How could I refute that?
The analogy I came up with was...toilet water.
Let’s say I was cooking dinner and decided to use toilet water to boil the pasta, make the lemonade, and steam the asparagus.
Water is a fundamental ingredient in each of these things. Can’t boil pasta, make lemonade, or steam asparagus without using water.
If I use water (a fundamental ingredient) to prepare these, and I have taken the water from the toilet, none of these dishes are edible and the lemonade will not be safe to drink.
The pasta may be high end or homemade, the asparagus may be right out of my own garden, and the lemonade may be icy cold and made with the ripest lemons and cane sugar in the correct proportions, but...they are ruined and invalidated as meal items due the the fundamental flaw of using toilet water to prepare them.
With leftist views, there is so much they believe that is predicated on faulty premises, that the flaws from those insinuate into nearly every single stance they take or argument they make.
In economics, they believe in equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity, and that wealth cannot be created from scratch, but must be obtained at the expense of someone less well off.
In warfare, they believe in “fighting fair” (we have overpowering superiority with aircraft, we shouldn’t use our B-52’s against our opponents...it isn’t “fair”) and making the military a jobs program for affirmative action purposes.
In racial relations, they believe in Critical Race Theory and affirmative action, not judging people on their capability.
In sexual matters, they believe that people can be whatever sex, gender, unicorn, or other thing they want to be, not what nature has endowed them with.
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Every single one of these things is the bedrock of what they believe, and that bedrock percolates up and contaminates every single thing that derives from that bedrock.
I utterly reject it.
On the positive side, I can read a few sentences into nearly any article (with occasional mistakes due to intentional misdirection on the part of the author) and immediately take the measure of the intellectual content of the article and the political stripe of the author. And I can do it pretty accurately. And that saves me a lot of time.
If Chine buys $1 billion less soybeans from the USA, it will buy them elsewhere.
This will mean that the countries normally buying soybeans from that “elsewhere” will have to resort to US supplies.
“If President Trump reverses course”
President Trump needs to stay on course.
No one expected trade reform to be a pleasant process, but financially balanced trade is what the whole world needs.
A world where everyone that can work has access to work in their own country will be good for the investors of San Francisco and Greenwich too.
14 bucks per 100 for milk-thats 14 bucks per 100 pounds. The foreigners are dumping cheese by the boatloads on the US markets while protecting their markets.
From my friend in Wis who is a dairy farmer and his milk goes for cheese.
BTW, that foreign cheese? It doesnt have to meet the same health/quality standards as US cheese does. Some of it has dirt (wont mention what kind of dirt) in it. Oh yes, the cheese makers actually purchase that garbage and test it. They file complaints with the proper authorities and nothing gets done about it.
Make sure you are purchasing US dairy products in the store.
“the rest of the world will find a way to replace American produce in their markets”
Produce is seasonal.
If I want fresh peaches in the winter, they have to come from the Southern Hemisphere.
Blueberry crops come first from Florida and work their way north to New Jersey.
Cherries mainly come from Washington state. They grow on trees and the trees take years to grow.
The story is overseas buyers were accelerating their buying to beat the tariffs.
Once tariffs are in place exports should drop.
“my friend in Wis who is a dairy farmer and his milk goes for cheese”
In the Eastern US market, the Cabot Dairy Cooperative in Vermont now supplies a lot of the cheese.
If the milk price isn’t good in Wisconsin, perhaps a Wisconsin dairy cooperative is needed.
Imports of Chinese-made goods could be tied to Chinese purchases of American farm goods.
Is the problem serious enough to require that?
Constitution: “The Congress shall have power...to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations”
Note the word “shall”. No trade treaty can ever prevent Congress from regulating foreign trade.
The Chinese government shouldn’t mess with our upcoming Congressional elections.
The European Union shouldn’t mess with our upcoming Congressional elections.
“Wisconsin milk prices have reached their lowest point in six years. As of May 2016, the average price has gone below $16 per hundredweight a common unit in dairy pricing, equaling 11.63 gallons and sometimes as low as $13. This price is directly related to the price of cheeses and other dairy products made from milk, but it’s also tied to international milk markets.”
“In 2014, Wisconsin’s $43 billion dairy industry exported $479 million worth of products to other countries, according to figures released by state agriculture officials.”
https://wpr.org/here-and-now-dairy-economist-places-falling-milk-prices-global-picture
May 9, 2016
Note the date and don’t blame President Donald Trump.
So when you fire back in defense, that’s when it becomes your war? Interesting logic. So that means the US started World War 2 after Pearl Harbor?
OK. You go right ahead and eat that crap with hair and manure and such in it.
Wisconsin already has Dairy cooperatives. Has had them a hell of a lot longer than anyone else.
Where did I say anyone is blaming Trump?
Matter of fact, they are cheering Trump on since at last a president is doing something that prevents the GD foreigners from dumping sub quality products onto OUR markets while restricting OUR imports into their markets.
The establishment really wants the US to turn back to a subservient relationship with China.
I believe we are Japan’s major customer of soy beans as well. The chances Asia will supplement soy with something else is a pretty small chance.
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Ultimately the farmers will win big if they stick with Trump.
Please tell me the US is importing cheese from Europe - not China. Yuck.
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Steven Hilding must ride the short bus to work at the Cognitively impaired Town Hall.
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