The President of Rural America 2020 says rather than bring improvements for American agriculture U.S President Donald Trump's trade wars have left farms deeply in debt and increasingly dependent on government subsidies.
Earlier this week, in advance of Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to the Iowa State Fairgrounds yesterday, Rural America 2020 hosted a news conference to draw attention to its members' frustrations with the Trump administration’s failed trade policies.
Chris Gibbs, an Ohio farmer and President of the Rural America 2020 Board of Directors, says it’s a time to determine a better path forward for American agriculture.
Clip-Chris Gibbs-Rural America 2020:
When I look around my community, my state, I see farms deeply in debt and increasingly reliant on federal government subsidies. While he talks a good game, Donald Trump's vision for agriculture doesn’t seem to offer any change to these trends. He's disrupted our trading relationships on every front from China to the EU to our closest North American partners, Canada and Mexico.
His war on trade, and that's what it is, a war on trade, has not resulted in significant improvements for American agriculture that we couldn't have achieved through allied cooperation. Rather, they seem to be manufactured crisis done for Donald Trump's own personal political gain, to lift up his base without moving forward with vision on long term trade policy.
Just this last week, against the council of the U.S. Aluminum Association and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, President Trump reinstated tariffs on Canadian aluminum claiming Canada was taking advantage of the U.S. That hurts farmers. That hurts me. We buy things made out of aluminum. We pay those tariffs. This is a slap in the face of the USMCA that Trump was so adamant about rebuilding. These updates, which were needed could have been made with diplomatic skill rather than threats.
Source : Farmscape