logo
  • Nonprofit News
  • Management
    • Boards and Governance
    • Communication
      • Framing & Narratives
    • Ethics
    • Financial Management
    • Fund Development
    • Leadership
    • Technology
  • Philanthropy
    • Corporate Social Responsibility
    • Donor-Advised Funds
    • Foundations
    • Impact Investing
    • Research
    • Workplace Giving
  • Policy
    • Education
    • Healthcare
    • Housing
    • Government
    • Taxes
  • Economic Justice
    • Economy Remix
    • Economy Webinars
    • Community Benefits
    • Economic Democracy
    • Environmental Justice
    • Fair Finance
    • Housing Rights
    • Land Justice
    • Poor People’s Rights
    • Tax Fairness
  • Racial Equity
  • Social Movements
    • Community Development
    • Community Organizing
    • Culture Change
    • Education
    • Environment
    • Gender Equality
    • Immigrant Rights
    • Indigenous Rights
    • Labor
    • LGBTQ+
    • Racial Justice
    • Youth Activism
  • About Us
  • Log in
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Webinars
    • Leading Edge Membership
    • Sponsored Webinars
    • Economic Justice
  • Tiny Spark Podcast
  • Magazine
    • Magazine
    • Leading Edge Membership
Donate
Government Taxes and Expenditures

Trade, Not Aid! Farmers Organize to Make Noise over Tariffs

Jim Schaffer
July 27, 2018
Share22
Tweet
Share
Email
22 Shares
“Thriving Soybeans,” Don O‘Brien

July 26, 2018; New York Magazine

Are farmers generally happy with the promise of $12 billion in federal aid in return for having their trade relationships interrupted? Not at all. Arguing that it is at best a short-term fix with serious long-term consequences, farmers launched into campaign mode yesterday across rural America. One line was repeated over and over: “Trade over aid!”

Eric Levitz in New York Magazine notes that the trade war has already cost US farmers dearly. “The National Farmers Union,” writes Levitz, “estimates that the tariffs foreign countries have placed on American farm products—in retaliation against Trump’s various tariffs—have already cost U.S. agricultural interests $13 billion.”

Farmers speaking out yesterday made any number of points in support of this position while trying not to bash the administration entirely. In essence they boiled down to:

  • The money being vastly inadequate even as a short-term plug.
  • The interruption of hard won trade relationships would be disruptive and possibly hard to resume in the long term.
  • The destabilization of the farms would make them unattractive to lenders upon which they depend.

Bloomberg reports on this last aspect:

Some farmers are going to have some tough conversations with their bankers, said John Heisdorffer, president of the American Soybean Association and himself a grower in Keota, Iowa. While the assistance plan “will help out a little bit,” he said, sour prices will prompt bankers to ask: “Why should I give you money again to operate?”

Farmers for Free Trade, a nonprofit advocacy group backed by the American Farm Bureau Federation and major commodity groups like the National Pork Producers Council, is investing $2.5 million in a four-month ad campaign to show the pain caused by Trump’s new trade policies. Farmers for Free Trade formed last year in response to Trump’s potential withdrawal from NAFTA and other administration trade policies.

One television ad is set to run on Fox News, CNBC, and CNN, as well as in local television and radio markets in Iowa, Pennsylvania and Michigan. The ad responds to White House trade adviser Peter Navarro saying on July 19th that the impact of the tariffs are nothing more than a “rounding error.” The ad sends this rebuke: “America’s farmers and factory workers are not a rounding error.”

Farmers for Free Trade will also deploy digital and print advertising along with town hall events starting during the August congressional recess. Just when Trump “rages against reality” by demanding that his family, let alone his staff, adhere to the rule that Fox is the only source of approved news, the farmers are bringing their inescapable truth directly to the president where he lives.

US farm exports, which enjoyed their third-best year on record in fiscal year 2017 according to US Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Purdue, are key to the sector’s profitability. Those profits are now under threat after China imposed tariffs on US soybeans and other farm products in retaliation for US tariffs on Chinese manufacturing goods. Trump’s recent $12 billion emergency relief package for farmers includes direct payments to farmers, purchases of agricultural commodities for food-aid programs, and stepped-up promotion of new export markets. National Review reported that the aid will come from the Commodity Credit Corporation, a depression-era program that can borrow $30 billion from the US Treasury without the approval of Congress. Not known for resisting subsidies, farmers are taking issue with this bailout. Government relief is not nearly enough to fill the gap that this emergency of Trump’s own making is creating.

While some farm groups applauded the handout, many took it as confirmation that the White House has no intention of calling off its trade war anytime soon. After all, if the president were on the brink of a breakthrough with China, he wouldn’t feel compelled to funnel such large subsidies through an obscure New Deal–era program. On Tuesday, the American Soybean Association demanded a “a longer-term strategy to alleviate mounting soybean surpluses and continued low prices, including a plan to remove the harmful tariffs.” That sentiment was echoed by other agricultural lobbies, including the recently formed Farmers for Free Trade—which is preparing a $2.5 million campaign against the president’s tariffs.

This developing story will showcase the consequences of the Trump administration’s trade policies and actions. Farmers for Free Trade intends to make known the real-life costs of farmers, manufacturers, factory workers, and families who are experiencing the loss of jobs, cancelled contracts, and increased prices.—Jim Schaffer

Share22
Tweet
Share
Email
22 Shares

About The Author
Jim Schaffer

The founders of Covenant House, AmeriCares, TechnoServe and the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp were my mentors who entrusted me with much. What I can offer the readers of NPQ is carried out in gratitude to them and to the many causes I’ve had the privilege to serve through the years.

Related
Denmark Comes Clean on Pigs: Will the US Follow?
By Steve Dubb
December 11, 2019
Crowdsourcing Sustainable Agricultural Practices
By Marian Conway
October 4, 2019
Preserving Farmland in Montana: 3 Rural Community Development Tools
By Steve Dubb
September 18, 2019
UN Report Details Climate Impact on Our Dwindling Land Resources
By Steve Dubb
August 12, 2019
The Lavender Fields of Manhattan and Those who Tend Them: Treasuring the Unlikely
By Marian Conway
June 28, 2019
Co-op Fever Comes to Butte, Montana
By Steve Dubb
June 13, 2019
other posts by The Author
Though Silenced by an Assassin’s Bullet, St. Romero’s...
By Jim Schaffer
October 25, 2018
A City of Billionaires and Kids in Need: Homelessness in the...
By Jim Schaffer
October 22, 2018
Arkansas Public Media Collaboration Falters
By Jim Schaffer
October 16, 2018
A Series on Sensemaking Organizations
The Sensemaking Organization: Designing for Complexity
The Sensemaking Mindset: Improvisation over Strategy
Structuring for Sensemaking: The Power of Small Segments
logo
Donate
  • About
  • Contact
  • Newsletters
  • Write for NPQ
  • Advertise
  • Writers
  • Funders
  • Copyright Policy
  • Privacy Policy

Subscribe to View Webinars

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by GDPR plugin
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.