“U.S. farmers view cuts to USAID as a direct assault on them. USAID has a $40 billion budget and runs aid programs in over 100 countries with a staff of more than 10,000 workers. Over 40% of the food distributed by USAID comes from American farms, according to the Congressional Research Service.”
Rural voters — especially farmers — are feeling the pain inflicted on them by the MAGA agenda they probably supported in the last election. Remember the massive cuts to USAID eight months ago? American farmers have already paid a heavy price for those cuts. Our Dear Leader promised to help farmers weather this storm. Help, however, never came. And now the Republicans’ stupid and pointless shutdown has moved any potential support into the distant (and unlikely) future.
Now comes the latest insult to the MAGA base: The $20 billion bailout of the Argentine economy. Who is this helping? Well, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, the bailout benefits the hedge fund buddies of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. It certainly doesn’t help our farmers, who stood by and watched as Brazil, and now Argentina, have captured the huge Chinese soybean market. And it puts the screws to US ranchers as our government just quadrupled low-tariff imports of Argentinian beef,
American Soybean Association (ASA) President Caleb Ragland shared his statement on some impacts of Trump’s trade policy of tit-for-tat tariffs between the world’s two biggest economies: “The frustration is overwhelming. U.S. soybean prices are falling, harvest is underway, and farmers read headlines not about securing a trade agreement with China, but that the U.S. government is extending $20 billion in economic support to Argentina while that country drops its soybean export taxes to sell 20 shiploads of Argentine soybeans to China in just two days.” Our farmers are starting to wonder why Trump is bailing out Argentina, yet can’t scrounge up any bailout for them, or even better yet, why he can’t quit his tariff tantrums and fix the mess he made, so they can afford fertilizer and tractors and find a market for their products.