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We Have To Pay For Trump's Ignorant Use Of Tariffs?

Commentary: So, Trump wants to offer $12 billion of our tax dollars to farmers to offset a trade war that he started. Has he offered training money for people with few marketable skills? Has he protected access to health care for those people with preexisting conditions? The answer is no. So why is he offering subsidies to well-off Midwest farmers that already have many government handouts? Could it be that rural America went heavily for him in the 2016 election and that Republican Senators  in those states are criticizing him because of his ignorant use of Tariffs that effects their constituents. I think so.

Trump has little understanding of past trade policies that did or didn’t work—like during the great depression, or what happen during the 1970’s and 1980’s with Japan and the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995. Rather than having his revisionist nationalist world order that attacks everyone with trade disputes--that clashes with the long-existed order built by the United States itself.

The U.S. is not exempt from ridiculous trade policy. Why do we continue to pay two/three times the world price of sugar—to protect a few inefficient sugar beet farmers? Why are we subsidizing corn farmers to produce ethanol which is five to six times less efficient than obtaining ethanol from sugar cane? It cost more for the inputs to produce corn than what it is worth in a gallon of gas. Nearly 40% of our corn production now goes into ethanol. I should know because I was in the Department of Agriculture when these policies were established or continued.