Liberal Forum

jerrab » 12 Apr 2025, 10:52 am » wrote: ↑

12 Apr 2025, 10:52 am

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. Other countries on Trump’s harassment list, including Canada and Mexico, are targeting US agricultural products for retaliatory tariffs and eyeing diversifying their sources of imports. At the same time, American farmers staring down reduced access to foreign markets are also facing higher production costs due to the US tariffs on imported agricultural inputs. Steel and aluminum tariffs mean higher prices for farm equipment. Canada is by far the largest supplier of potash to the US, which means higher fertilizer prices.Farmers getting squeezed on both ends of a renewed and potentially uglier trade war likely means taxpayers will get squeezed to help cover the consequences. The first Trump administration took $23 billion from taxpayers and gave it to farmers to compensate for their losses. In her January Senate confirmation hearing, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins referenced the bailout, noting, “We are prepared to execute something similar … we can’t reinvent the wheel.”While the administration is happy to provide farmers with another bailout following another self-inflicted gunshot to the economy, it’s already started handing out taxpayer money. Last week, Rollins used National Agriculture Day to announce the administration is issuing $10 billion in direct payments to farmers authorized by Congress in December. This is all occurring while the Trump administration is supposedly trying to downsize the federal government. However, eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse” in government programs while simultaneously offering multi-billion dollar bailouts—all in the pursuit of economic autarky—will accomplish no such thing.Looking for a good example of government waste, fraud, and abuse?The time the Trump administration is spending upending global trade is a waste, the rationale for it is a fraud, and forcing taxpayers to cover the damage is downright abuse.Related Tags
Economics, Tax and Budget Policy, Trade Policy