Donald Trump heard an earful on Tuesday from senators in his own party after his administration pledged to provide up to $12 billion in aid for U.S. farmers to shield them from the effects of trade disputes cultivated by the White House itself.
Through a series of aggressive tariff announcements, the president is fomenting a series of spats with China, the European Union, Canada and other trading partners.
He told a veterans convention in Kansas City that the agriculture sector has ‘some of the greatest lobbying teams ever put together’ trying to persuade him to spare farmers the impact of a tariff battle, and asked farmers to ‘just be a little patient.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, ran out of patience on Tuesday, saying Trump’s tariffs ‘are a massive tax increase on American consumers and businesses, and instead of offering welfare to farmers to solve a problem they themselves created, the administration should reverse course and end this incoherent policy.’
President Donald Trump asked farmers to ‘just be a little patient’ on Tuesday during a speech in Kansas City, as his administration announced up to $12 billion in bailout money for parts of the agriculture industry hit by the effects of his trade wars
Foreign markets in Canada, China and elsewhere have tightened for U.S. farmers in retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on other goods
Republican Senators Ben Sasse (left) and Bob Corker (right) came out against Trump’s farmer bailout, saying his tariffs caused the problem the subsidies are now trying to address
Saying farmers want ‘trade, not aid’ he claimed the administration’s cross-border commercial bickering is forcing it ‘to invoke a welfare policy for our farmers, which I’m sure is not what they wish.’
Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, a frequent Trump critic, said the president’s ‘trade war’ is ‘cutting the legs out from under farmers and the White House’s “plan” is to spend $12 billion on gold crutches.’
‘Tariffs are taxes that punish American consumers and producers,’ Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul added on Twitter. ‘If tariffs punish farmers, the answer is not welfare for farmers – the answer is remove the tariffs.’
Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson said the unexpected move to manipulate trade through targeted subsidies ‘is becoming more and more like a Soviet-type of economy.’
Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, another Republican who regularly challenges the White House, called the plan ‘awful.’
‘American farmers want markets, not handouts,’ he said in a statement. ‘This is what we feared all along: that this would just turn into more aid programs.’
The president has insisted that farmers will come out ahead in the long term as other nations lower their longstanding trade barriers, and the $12 billion is meant as a short-term salve to soothe the wounds
Wall Street traders flooded money into the ag sector on Tuesday following reports of the subsidies; John Deere stock shot up more than 4 per cent in a half-day
John Thune, a South Dakota GOP senator who is generally more Trump-friendly, told reporters at the Capitol that the $12 billion Band-aid is an ‘acknowledgement that it has a lot of unintended consequences and creates a lot of collateral damage.’
Plenty of congressional Democrats took aim at Trump, especially those representing states with large farm economies.
‘OK @POTUS – you created this mess with your trade war and now you are going to spend $12 billion to placate the farmers that voted for you,’ California Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier tweeted.
Even Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, a longtime pro-Trump stalwart, had his doubts while calling the bailout money ‘encouraging for the short term.’
‘What farmers in Iowa and throughout rural America need in the long term are markets and opportunity, not government handouts,’ Grassley said.
Trump declared earlier Tuesday that ‘Tariffs are the greatest!’ and threatened to impose additional penalties on U.S. trading partners as he prepared for Wednesday’s negotiations with European officials at the White House.
Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson said manipulating trade through targeted subsidies ‘is becoming more and more like a Soviet-type of economy’
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle slammed the White House for creating a ‘mess’ with multiple trade wars
Before departing for Kansas City, Trump tweeted that any U.S. trade partner needs to either negotiate a ‘fair deal, or it gets hit with Tariffs. It’s as simple as that.’
Tariffs are taxes on imports, meant to protect domestic businesses and put foreign competitors at a disadvantage. But they also exact a toll on domestic companies and consumers through higher prices on imported goods when American trading partners retaliate.
They can also cut off U.S. producers, including farmers, from foreign marketplaces that have been predictable annual sources of income in the past.
The Trump administration has slapped tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese goods in a dispute over Beijing’s high-tech industrial policies. China has retaliated on soybeans and pork, affecting Midwest farmers in a region of the country that supported the president in his 2016 campaign.
The president tweeted his view on Tuesday that ‘tarrifs are the greatest!’
Trump has threatened to place more punitive taxes on up to $500 billion in products imported from China, a move that would dramatically ratchet up the stakes in the trade dispute involving the globe’s two biggest economies.
Republican lawmakers running for re-election in rural America worry that the fallout could turn voters off, even in states Trump won handily.
Trump has been talking for months about finding ways to aid farmers as China, in particular, has canceled orders for soybeans and other crops.
Sonny Perdue, secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said the $12 billion relief package will be financed through the USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation, a mechanism that will not require congressional approval.
‘This obviously is a short-term solution that will give President Trump time to work on a long-term trade policy,’ Perdue said.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters aboard Air Force One on the way back to Washington from Missouri that ‘the president will stand up for the farmers.’
‘He understands the farmers in this country feed us, they fuel us, they clothe us. And he’ll do everything he can to protect them,’ Gidley said.