August 25, 2019: Tariff War with China Hurting Farmers

 

8/25/19: President Trump gets confused at the G-7 summit and garbles his message. A reporter asks him if he thinks he can force U.S. companies to leave China. He could if he wanted, he says, channeling his inner Benito Mussolini. 

Still, he adds, “I have no plan right now. Actually, we’re getting along very well with China right now. We’re talking.” 

A reporter puts another question to him. Does he have any second thoughts about raising tariffs on China? 

“Yeah, sure, why not?” Trump replies. “Might as well. Might as well. I have second thoughts about everything.” 

(Including wedding vows.)

 

Trump keeps insisting that America’s farmers are doing great. For some strange reason farm groups which have protested Trump administration tariff policies include: 

The American Farm Bureau Federation

The National Pork Producers Council

Farmers for Free Trade

The Dairy Business Association

Concerned Brussel Sprouts Council

National Corn Growers Association

National Association of Wheat Growers

American Soybean Association

National Farmers Union 

Okay, one of those is made up.

 

The collateral damage resulting from the Trump Trade Wars may be difficult to repair, even if China buckles. “Last year,” Bloomberg reported, “farm debt-to-income was at the highest level since 1984.”

 

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TO BE FAIR, we should note that many farmers continue to support the president. All respect to the hard-working farmers of America. 

Although this blogger still hates beets. 

This blogger should also make clear: He does not believe all Trump fans, farmers or not, are racists or chuckleheads. Nor does he believe Trump supporters are bad people, generally. Still, one must ask why it is that decent human beings refuse to acknowledge an underlying current of virulent hate in the president’s messaging. It should be clear he’s tapping into dangerous currents in American political thought. “Thought” being broadly defined. (See: 8/6/19 and 8/20/19.)

 

For example, these guys gathered for fun in Hillsborough, North Carolina this weekend. Note their banner: 

 

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WE ALSO LEARN that President Trump has been kicking around the idea that we could use some of our nuclear weapons to blow up hurricanes before they hit the U.S. coast. Aides are reluctant to tell him the truth. 

Coming soon: radioactive fish!!!!

August 27, 2019: Guess Where Trump Wants to Hold Next G-7!

 

8/27/19: Americans learn this week that the United States will be responsible for holding the G-7 summit in 2020. Well, then, where, oh where, would the best place to hold that meeting be? 

If you said: “Trump National Doral Miami,” you win the prize. 

According to the owner of said property, Doral would be perfect for such a gathering. Let’s have the Commander-in-Chief explain the joys that would await leaders of the G-7 (or the G-8, if he can invite Putin): 

Everybody’s that’s coming, all of these people with all of their big entourages come. It’s set up so — and by the way, my people looked at 12 sites. All good, but some were two hours from an airport, some were four hours from, I mean they were so far away. Some didn’t allow this, they didn’t allow that.

 

Yeah, imagine. Trump’s people looked at a dozen sites. And they realized, hey, Doral is the best!!! 

With the world watching with amaze, and the G-7 in France wrapping up, Trump continued with his sales pitch. 

With Doral, we have a series of magnificent buildings, we call them bungalows. They each hold from 50 to 70 very luxurious rooms, with magnificent views. We have incredible conference rooms, incredible restaurants. It’s like, it’s like such a natural. ... And what we have also is Miami, and we have many hundreds of acres so that in terms of parking, in terms of all of the things that you need, the ballrooms are among the biggest in Florida, and the best. It’s brand new. 

 

Plus, if hurricanes threaten – we have the nukes. (See: 8/25/19.)

Trump at G-7, and of course he wants to lean into the picture.

 

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SPEAKING OF THREATS to the safety of millions of Americans, a judge in Oklahoma penalizes Johnson & Johnson $572 million for its role in marketing opioids and claiming they were perfectly safe. That judgment won’t bring back the tens of thousands who have died, of course. 

News of that judgment spooks other pushers. Purdue Pharma, which marketed opioids most aggressively, and claimed they were the safest, has offered to settle in federal court and pay $10-12 billion in damages. 

The victims of greed still won’t rise from the dead.

 

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PRESIDENT OBAMA may be gone. The imaginary “War on Coal” he supposedly launched, continues to be fought. 

U.S. coal demand fell in 2018 to the lowest level since 1979 and is expected to drop further this year. 

Must be Obama’s fault!

 

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“They picked winners, and they picked losers.” 

WE MIGHT NOT be getting hurt in the tariff war, according to President Trump; but lobster fishermen would choose to disagree. In the first six months of 2018, the Chinese bought 12 million pounds worth of the crustaceans from the U.S. And then Trump raised tariffs. 

China retaliated as anyone could predict. 

In the first six months of this year, U.S. sales of lobster to China fell 80 percent, to 2.2 million pounds.

 

Stephanie Nadeau, owner of The Lobster Company in Arundel, Maine, explains how tariff wars turn bloody in the real world. “They picked winners, and they picked losers,” she says of Trump and his economic advisers, “and they picked me a loser. There is no market that’s going to replace China.”  

Loss of market forced Nadeau to lay off seven of the fourteen people she once had working in wholesale. 

Nadeau is hardly alone in her pain. One trade group estimates that Trump’s tariffs cost U.S. businesses $3.4 billion in June.