r/farming • u/NoseRepresentative • 3d ago
If Tariffs Are Supposed To Bring In So Much External Revenue, Why Is The Trump Administration Bailing Out Farmers Again—Using Internal Debt?
https://offthefrontpage.com/why-is-the-trump-administration-bailing-out-farmers-again-using-internal-debt/187
u/technosquirrelfarms 3d ago
It’s all so dumb. If tariffs work, they won’t bring in money. If tariffs bring in a lot of money, they’re not working.
Clowns at the helm
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u/Jenetyk 3d ago
Don't know how many times I can say "the purpose of a tariff isn't to generate revenue; it's the opposite" until it gets through.
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u/anonmdoc 3d ago
Tariffs are effective…..if you make everything in your country.
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u/outsmartedagain 3d ago
Take a look around your home and see what domestically produced products you possess. Do you really believe that tariffs are sufficient motivation to bring Americans to open factories to make even 20% of your current possessions? How much more are you willing to pay to support this type of effort?
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u/slow_news_day 3d ago
Not to mention, we already had a nearly 4% unemployment rate and stock market was near all time high. The only way Trump’s going to bring about this “golden age” of manufacturing is by bringing people out of higher paying jobs to work for minimum wage manufacturing things like screws and tshirts. That or import tens of millions of foreign labor immigrants.
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u/anonmdoc 3d ago
We were due for a correction of some sort, but this case is the worse of the two options we had.
I’m curious if the next move is to get rid of income tax with the justification that tariffs bring in enough taxes (Tariffs aren’t ’added’ to the cost. It’s a separate charge the importer/exporter pays. They adjust the cost of their product to cover the tariff charge). But, that theory wouldn’t make sense because he is trying to bring manufacturing back with a game of chicken.
Idk what this clown is doing.
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u/borderlineidiot 3d ago edited 2d ago
Then what are they going to give the rich if there is no income tax?! That will just help us poors.....
edit: can't spell!
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u/dallasalice88 2d ago
Did you mean give the rich? Bear in mind that if they eliminated the federal income tax system then no one would receive child tax credits or earned income credit on returns anymore. Which would indeed hurt many struggling families. And wealthy people simply would not owe anything.
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u/upvotechemistry 3d ago
They're crashing the dollar for the crypto bros and tech billionaires. It will eventually bring back low wage factory work, because political uncertainty will reduce investment in automation and other infrastructure, and a lower wage workforce and currency advantage will bring back exports to the wealthy liberal democracies.
Americans chose being Vietnam or China over being America
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u/anonmdoc 3d ago
You and I agree. My comment implies we don’t make nearly enough domestically to survive this trade war.
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2d ago edited 5h ago
[deleted]
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u/outsmartedagain 2d ago
I completely agree but my perspective is that we won’t produce everything that you currently own. Will Americans open up factories for even 30% of what we import? I think that what we consider necessary possessions will change considerably. Remember the FoxCon debacle of past years? Even massive tax breaks couldn’t incentivize them to proceed beyond the photo opportunity.
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u/Ataru074 3d ago
No they aren’t even in that case. The only effect they had is that American manufacturing can literally produce shit and sell it at just a little less than what every foreign product would cost.
That’s it.
Let say a TV made in Korea now cost $2,000 add the tariffs and it goes up to $2,500
If the US had a TV of similar quality at $2,000 they’ll raise the price to $2,500 just because they can. Because your alternate product is more expensive.
A tariff is the opposite of a subsidy. A subsidy allows the producer to compete at a lower price, let say bread if subsidized so you don’t pay $10 for a load of bread.
You save money, the farmer gets some subsidies so they can sell the wheat at a competive price, jobs are in the US, income and business taxes are used for the subsidy.
If the product has a tariff now let say the profit margin on the previous TV goes from $100 to $600. The manufacturer doesn’t even have to raise wages, because they’d make more money just selling less (not 1/6, but less TV to generate the same profits)
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u/anonmdoc 3d ago
I mean, the ideal scenario is there competition in the US. We are talking in an ideal world, which we are far from. In an ideal world, the US manufacturer of X is indeed cheaper than the foreign manufacturer of X. If greed wasn’t rampant, then the US product would be 25% (if the tariff is 25%) cheaper. But, the US isn’t in any position to have that competition.
That’s a very cut and dry analysis. I don’t believe prices will go up 25% on 25% tariffs. It’ll go up, but not by that margin imo.
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u/Ataru074 3d ago
It depends on the product. Remember Covid shortages? Raw material went back down, prices… not so much.
It’s always a good excuse to raise prices. It’s going to be a fun ride and a whole lot of businesses will just gladly take government handouts, which will increase a debt, which will increase inflation in the long run especially as the dollar is slipping in the international markets, and as a net importer, that’s a horrible news.
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u/KingMelray 3d ago
Someone told this retard that tariffs are taxes on other countries and now he's running with it.
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u/CapGrundle 3d ago
It’s to generate expenses? Until it gets through what? Huh?
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u/NotAnAnticline 3d ago
Tariffs artificially inflate the cost of goods. They're expenses the government applies to discourage their citizens from purchasing those goods.
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u/shmere4 3d ago
Tariffs are a way to impose taxes that mostly affect the 99% without needing to go through the bad press of raising taxes via a bill. It’s nothing more than that.
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u/NotAnAnticline 3d ago
Tariffs absolutely do affect the 1%. Most of them want to sell us shit that will be more expensive due to tariffs. When price goes up, demand goes down. That means fewer sales and therefore, less profit.
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u/digitthedog 3d ago
I think "affect" in this case means impact quality of life. There are billionaires going through the trauma of losing 1 out of their 3 billion dollars...on paper...today. It will not impact their retirement, their children, their nutrition, their healthcare, their number of cars, their vacation plans.
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u/i_wayyy_over_think 3d ago
It makes more sense if you believe destroying the economy is the goal to get people in the streets for justification to enact the insurrection act and martial law.
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u/xxPipeDaddyxx 3d ago
What about cutting waste, fraud, and abuse? Where are the DOGE boys when we need them?
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u/SallyStranger 3d ago
Don't worry they're totally on top of shutting down HEAP and libraries. Grandma not freezing to death? That's wasteful. And libraries are just full of fraud aka science.
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u/OldKermudgeon 3d ago
Because that's not how tariffs work.
Let's use the US and the EU as examples. The US is the importer and the EU is the exporter.
If the US imposes tariffs on the EU, the tariff costs are paid for by the importer because it is an import tax. It's effectively a US business paying a US tax that goes into US coffers. The US business then can either choose to absorb that extra cost or pass it to the consumer. To further this, if the EU decides to apply retaliatory tariffs as a result of US tariffs (tit for tat), then EU businesses will pay an EU tax that goes into EU coffers.
There is another form of trade tax which is an export tax/surcharge. That's when the exporter applies an export tax on things the buyer wants or needs. So if the EU imposes an export tax, the US business would need to pay the EU tax which goes into EU coffers. Again, US businesses can either choose to absorb that cost or pass it on to the consumer.
All bailouts are internal and can only be paid for either out of internal income (taxes) and/or borrowing money by selling IOUs (treasury bonds, i.e., debt). There is a third option, which is to just print more money, but that begins to devalue the currency, is fairly inflationary, and doesn't show up in the data until 1-2 years later.
So tariffs are an internal tax and bailouts are an internal expense.
Using tariffs as a bludgeon is poor geo-economic policy, even when those making those decisions think they're great ideas (they're not). The US did this in the 1930s, which gave rise to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan because they were either economically and/or materially crushed and needed to secure their own resources.
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u/snusmini 3d ago
Because trade is an extremely complex issue. Unfortunately, MAGAs response to complexity is to pretend that everything is simple. Hence “things are so bad. Which is why we need tariffs. Such a beautiful word. It will make us more money than we know what to do with”. Simplicity.
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u/digitthedog 3d ago
Kindergarten lessons have greater depth than Trump's whole presentation yesterday. It's like he was trying to put tariffs into language a labrador retriever could understand, or a rock. And that chart.
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u/Mountain_Fig_9253 3d ago
Farmers continue to be the largest voting bloc of welfare queens in the country.
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u/KnoWanUKnow2 3d ago
I don't know. Oil and gas soaks up a lot of subsidies as well. Somewhere between $600-$750 billion last year in the USA. Because, you know, oil companies like Exxon are famously poor and require handouts.
Agriculture gets a fraction of what oil and gas gets, somewhere around $85 billion last year. This year they're looking to at least double that.
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u/georgeisadick 3d ago
The arms manufacturing industry is no slouch either.
The thing is this information is all very obscure and hard to calculate. Almost certainly by design. It’s not like every subsidy arrive by a check in the mail. It’s much more subtle than that so it remains obscure.
The oil and gas industry gets to usurp the governments power of eminent domain. They get to drill public lands. The arms industry gets inflated sweetheart contracts. Big ag benefits from the regulatory framework, in that it becomes so costly to comply with regulation that it can’t be done at a reasonable scale.
All of this stuff is really difficult to quantify or put a dollar figure to, but it is subsidy in some form.
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u/TheCountRushmore 3d ago edited 3d ago
In 2022, fossil fuel subsidies in the United States totaled $757 billion, according to the International Monetary Fund. This includes $3 billion in explicit subsidies and $754 billion in implicit subsidies, which are costs like negative health impacts and environmental degradation that are borne by society at large rather than producers
That's not a real number. They are counting the negative environmental impact which we are looking the other way on to get to the hundreds of billions
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u/Big_Knobber 3d ago
I agree. I know it all impacts society as a whole but that's not a subsidy type that we're talking about.
I know our military spends a lot of time and money protecting oil tankers. That sounds more like an implicit subsidy
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u/georgeisadick 3d ago
What isn’t real about it? You can inflate and deflate these numbers depending on your perspective.
The $754 billion of implicit subsidy is still a cost of fossil fuel use that is not being paid by the industry. It gets abstract, but someone is going to bear those costs in one way or another.
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u/Mountain_Fig_9253 3d ago
Yea, but oil and gas companies aren’t a voting bloc. They are a lobbying one, but farmer vote and as a voting bloc they have consistently voted more and more red with every election.
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u/Nebraska716 3d ago
And they are only like one percent of the population and much of them are in the top one percent of net worth in country and net income on certain years.
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u/ExtentAncient2812 3d ago
The total value of the mortgage interest deduction in the. USA costs the government about $70 billion. Mortgage interest deduction is a subsidy for homeownership.
https://www.cbpp.org/research/mortgage-interest-deduction-is-ripe-for-reform
Total subsidy payments in the US, outside 2019, are $25-30 billion annually. In 2019 closer to $45b.
https://farm.ewg.org/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn
So, that's a no. Subsidies paid to farmers are a pittance. Especially when you consider that most are premium reductions for crop insurance.
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u/Automatic-Raspberry3 3d ago
Willing to bet it’s the Midwest crop guys and us up here in the northeast don’t get shit. Even though I’m already paying more for sugaring equipment out of Quebec
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u/Clean_Brilliant_8586 3d ago
It is only partially a sop to farmers. It is also trickle down funding for non-operator owners (i.e. landlords).
Case in point: the ground we have is in a trust, currently with six beneficiaries. Only one of those beneficiaries has or will ever farm the ground. I know of several other people who rent ground: anything from a 40 acre patch owned by one person to a few thousand acres, also owned by one person ultimately.
Can't make rental income if all the renters are broke. Can't (yet) go crying to the government for handouts to replace rental income. Easier to temporarily prop up your renters by crying "save the farmers! 'Murca!"
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u/beavis617 3d ago
Why did any farmers vote for Trump in 2024 when he screwed them over so badly in 2016?
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u/Ih8melvin2 3d ago
Because the USDA bailed them out then and they got big Trump checks.
Republicans eye bigger farm bailout amid Trump trade wars - POLITICO
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u/digitthedog 3d ago
Because the farmers who voted for Trump a particular type of stupid that combines being a shockingly poor judge of character and a thin understanding of economics, with major daddy issues.
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u/vehiclestars 3d ago
During the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations Republicans abandoned protectionist policies, and came out against quotas and in favor of the GATT/WTO policy of minimal economic barriers to global trade. Free trade with Canada came about as a result of the Canada–U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1987, which led in 1994 to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). It was based on Reagan's plan to enlarge the scope of the market for American firms to include Canada and Mexico.
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u/Unevenviolet 2d ago
My theory is that the tariffs are a way to rake money into the federal government while shifting the cost onto American consumers. The money raked in will be redistributed to the wealthy in the form of contracts ( Elon broke contracts at FAA and gave them to himself- Starlink) and giant tax breaks. Trump will marginally reduce income tax for the rest of us while the cost of goods we need to live will increase to the point that any tax break will be greatly out paced by what we have to spend. But hey, WOO HOO I SAVED 200 BUCKS THIS YEAR ON INCOME TAX! /s
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u/Successful-Sand686 3d ago
Because Trump just does that Putin tells him too.
There’s no 3d chess. There’s no plan. There’s no way tariffs increase economic activity.
It’s like America has a Russian president trying as hard as possible to destroy America.
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u/LimeGinRicky 3d ago
The farmers are milking the system. There should be no bailouts for those that chose to elect this dimwit. I’m pissed that farmers are going to get paid for doing nothing.
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u/thandrend 3d ago
I sound like a broken record, but elections have consequences.
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u/AThousandBloodhounds 3d ago edited 3d ago
Ironically, I first heard that phrase when Barack Obama used it after his first presidential election win.
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u/Das-Noob 3d ago
Ok I don’t like trump either, but isn’t this the money set aside from the Biden administration? Or are we talking a bout a new bailout? Cause how fast that idiot is speed running the US to the ground, it’s hard to keep up.
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u/BryceDignam 3d ago
The answer ia almost always because they are lying and if its not ita because they are stupid. Youre welcome.
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u/NamingandEatingPets 3d ago
It’s not about farmers. It’s about not wanting them to revolt. They voted for him. They’ll be ok.
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u/Analyst-Effective 3d ago
About the only thing we export, is agricultural products.
We can certainly subsidize the farmers a little bit, so any tariffs won't be a big problem
Most of the rest of the world subsidizes their Farmers as well
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u/authalic 2d ago
Why bail out the farmers? This was entirely avoidable.
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u/Analyst-Effective 2d ago
You make a good point.
Just because we have just about all kinds of incentives, we actually bail out Farmers all the time.
We give Farmers reduced property taxes, we have price supports for agricultural products, we even subsidized the farm crop insurance.
You're right. It was entirely avoidable by forcing countries to play with the right rules, early in the game
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u/authalic 2d ago
Which “right rules” are you referring to?
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u/Analyst-Effective 2d ago
The rules that Canada originally agreed to abide by
"For over a year, Canada has violated USMCA’s tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) provisions by reserving most of its preferential dairy TRQs for Canadian processors. Canada’s revised approach to TRQs, released in March 2022, still violated the agreement – prompting USTR to pursue a second USMCA enforcement action."
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u/authalic 2d ago
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u/Analyst-Effective 2d ago
You post something from Snopes, that wasn't even decided one way or the other.
Here's a court case that they lost.
"Canada in Dairy Dispute “The U.S. prevailed over Canada in a long-running dispute over Canadian policies aimed at shielding its dairy industry from American competition, according to a ruling published Tuesday from the first dispute resolution panel under the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The USMCA panel ruled that Canada’s policies violated its obligations under the trade deal between the three countries, which was agreed upon in 2018 and took effect in 2020. Canada has until Feb. 3 to bring its policies into compliance, or else face possible tariffs or other countermeasures from the U.S.” [01/04/22]"
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u/authalic 2d ago
And you post something from a milk industry trade group
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u/Analyst-Effective 2d ago
"WASHINGTON, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Canada violated a trade accord with the United States and Mexico by reserving most of its preferential dairy tariff-rate quotas for Canadian processors, a dispute panel found, and Washington warned it could retaliate if Ottawa did not change course. The U.S. Trade Representative's office claimed victory for Washington in the first dispute settlement panel ever brought under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA) that took effect in 2020. Canada said the report found "overwhelmingly" in its favor."
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u/crawdadicus 2d ago
Remember that huge swaths of farmland are owned by conglomerate who purchased the land on the cheap during the last three Republican lead recessions. Trump is just taking care of his oligarch buddies,
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u/ReactionAble7945 3d ago
OP, you appear to be set in your politics against Trump. So your question isn't honest. You are just picking arguments.
But for those not set. 1. Look at Canada and their tariffs. You can find non-biased articles about the Canadian tariffs. Canada has started a trade war with China. Why they did it and the good which may come out. 2. I doubt most people on REDDIT understand enough about how everything is connected to know if an individual tariff is good, bad, or indifferent. 2.1. Canada set a tariff on Chinese electronics. China countered with a tariff on Canada's sea food. Canada may change regs on who can fish where because China has been fishing waters that Canada can regulate. And this is just what can be found with a quick Google search. What don't we know and how will it impact things. 3. The one thing I do know... It takes multiple years for a change to have a ripple effect. 3.1. England's last steel plant is shutting down in June. How did they get to this point? Why didn't they put tariffs in place? Was it a mistake? 3.2. Why does big business benefit the most from free trade no tariffs? 3.3. Why does the environment suffer with a global ecconomy? 3.4. How does tariffs help the middle class?
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u/Strykerz3r0 3d ago
What is your point with #1?
Canada started a trade war with China, so? There is a huge difference between starting a trade war with a single partner and starting a trade war with your top three trade partners. And now, trump is pushing blanket tariffs in everyone except for Russia and NK. (He is still completely Putin's bitch)
And in #2, you show how tariffs generally work and how they used to work here. Selected tariffs on protected industries. Again, this is not what trump is doing as he is promising blanket tariffs of 20%.
And for #3, it doesn't take years to feel the affects when it is done this clumsily. This is part of the reason the stock markets have been constantly dropping since trump took office. Businesses like certainty. Trump is the opposite and can't even explain his own actions beyond saying 'good' or 'bad'
It really looks like you either have no idea what is happening around you or are just blindly defending a moron.
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u/ReactionAble7945 3d ago
- You can find impartial articles and educate yourself on the positives and negatives of tariffs. Tariffs are not all good, and they are not all bad. Canada had a long history of tariffs.
VS, Tariffs Connected to the USA, which you will have a hard time finding an article which isn't TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP. Good, bad, ugly proTrump or anti Trump, but IT IS ONLY A PRO OR ANTI TRUMP.
And you are pointing out how anti Trump you are, go back to #1.
Go back to point. While you may see great positive or negative day 1. You really don't know the result until you are several years down the road.
Your anti-Trump is coming through that he could cure cancer and you would then complain about all the people who will live and be a burden on the system.
4.5. The only way to look at this without bias is to remove Trump from the conversation, but that isn't what gets done with reddit. No, we are liberals here on reddit and will cheer on any liberal idea without understanding if it is good or bad overall.
Obama saying illegal immigrants are criminals good. Trump saying illegal immigrants are criminals bad. Obama saying we need to secure the borders good. Trump saying we need to secure the borders bad. Biden saying he will ignore the constitution to get around the courts and GOP congress good. Trump saying he will ignore the constitution bad.
Obama was right, then so is Trump. And Biden was wrong, so is Trump.
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u/Strykerz3r0 3d ago
You just regurgitated your previous points without addressing the fact that trump is targeting virtually all trading partners and his blanket tariffs are a far cry from the targeted tariffs you used in your argument.
If there are so many publications showing how great blanket tariffs are, why haven't you provided one. You made the claims, the burden is on you to provide evidence. As it is, you have a lot of unsupported opinions.
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u/ReactionAble7945 3d ago
That isn't part of the original question.
You hate Trump so much. It doesn't matter if he is right or wrong. He is wrong in your mind.
To see how tariffs work, go to my point 1 and look at Canada. You can see why some of what they have done works in the long run, and some of it doesn't. You can even see some items with short - and long-term effects.
No, the burden is on you to be ignorant or get an education. You have Google and you know to search on Canada and tariffs. So I have lead you to water, now drink. Or don't, I really don't care.
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3d ago
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u/paranalyzed 3d ago
"The administration is weighing a new batch of emergency aid to farmers as trading partners push back against U.S. tariffs with their own measures, The New York Times has reported."
From the second link within the posted article.
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u/Many-Resist-7237 Beef 3d ago
Most people working at FSA saw this coming on Inauguration Day. The second he mentioned tariffs, program rollout was inevitable.
Under the first term MFP dished out billions to try and put a bandaid on the fact (and make farmers forget) that they lost massive export markets because of his clownery.
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u/talino2321 3d ago
Yet the second paragraph of the article clearly states.
But just days after that comment, his administration is already preparing to bail out American farmers who are about to take a hit from those very same tariffs. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins confirmed that emergency aid programs are being set up to “mitigate any economic catastrophes” farmers may face.
Which means it was approved before Trump took office.
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u/tlopez14 3d ago
Well that doesn’t fit the narrative
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u/spaceneenja 3d ago
So the program is woke socialism?
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u/tlopez14 3d ago
Not sure I follow?
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u/spaceneenja 3d ago
All existing government programs are woke dei socialist money laundering.
Trump executive orders and new programs are patriotic and good.
That’s the narrative.
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u/tlopez14 3d ago
I think you may be responding to the wrong person. What is “woke DEI farming”? Is that like hiring quotas or something. I’ve honestly never heard the phrase used before.
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u/sneaky-pizza 3d ago
That's a lie
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u/hugeace007 3d ago
Don't accuse me of lying. I assumed, like the 50 other articles about USDA bailouts I've seen the past two weeks, this article was about ECAP.
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u/monkeysknowledge 3d ago
Imagine if President Kamala Harris had done this. Lol. Ya’lls racism really fucked us over this time.
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u/thedeanofmen 3d ago
How about you EDUCATE yourself about how government spending works and what a fiscal year is.
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u/Zerel510 3d ago
Ask yourselves why this propaganda piece is showing up first in the Reddit algorithm.
Ask yourself if the OP is anything more than a political runner. This is garbage "journalism"
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u/ExorIMADreamer Liberal Farmer from Forgotonnia 3d ago
Ask yourself why are you defending oligarchs who don't get a shit about you?
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u/Strykerz3r0 3d ago
So which facts do you disagree with and do you have any sources to support your argument or is this just another attempt by MAGAs at intentional ignorance?
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u/Neoliberal_Boogeyman 3d ago
Ask yourself if you paying additional consumption taxes is good while the wealthy get tax cuts.
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u/Zerel510 2d ago
"We are going back to the pile" -Randy Marsch
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u/Damnyoudonut 3d ago
“While tariffs are supposed to be paid by foreign exporters, economists widely agree that costs are passed on to U.S. consumers and businesses.”
They’re paid by the importing county. Always have been. Always will be. And will always be passed on to the consumer. This journalist go to the same business school as trump?