Farmers face sharp losses in the middle of Trump’s trade war and financing discounts
Jennifer Gillerson has never imagined that its dried fruits in Virginia, Virginia, will be busy with political battles in Washington, DC.
But last Friday, I learned that financing the American Ministry of Agriculture program helps schools and food banks to buy products from local farmers like them Cut. Without those federal dollars, Gilkerson no longer expects local schools to buy their dried fruits with freezing, which has already spent thousands of dollars preparing to produce them.
“We are only in such a situation of shock. We only know how to respond to all this. We thought this was sacred and could not be truly prejudiced. So it is just a very shock and destructive.” “Everyone believes that all farmers voted in favor of this, but we did not vote for this.”
From the discounts in financing to customs tariffs, farmers found themselves signed in the midst of President Donald Trump’s escalation of commercial wars and efforts to reduce billions of dollars in spending, leaving an increasing number now struggling to find markets for their products and face the danger of severe losses for the next year.
Trump hasRecognized The impact of his commercial policies will occur on farmers, and tells them in his speech to Congress this month that there will be a “small modification period” and that the farmers will have to “bear with me again.” When it comes to spending discounts in the Ministry of Agriculture and other agencies, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessin said in A. CNBC interview This week, current federal spending levels cannot be continued, and there will have to be the “period of toxins disposal” of the economy when making discounts.
But farmers all over the country-from young berries in Maine to Maine to swine producers on a large scale in the state of Iowa-they say that these changes in politics can paralyze their actions if they are not resolved soon, which led to long-term damage to the American agricultural industry.
“I think any farmer will tell you that we will take some pain in the short term, but we do not make this a long -term trade war, because that will not be good for agriculture or the country in general,” said Bob Hemswal, a farmer in the state of Iowa who cultivates the corn and raises the pigs. “I know this is the way President Trump believes that he will create better markets in the long run. I hope it is right. But my fear is that once you lose those markets against other suppliers, it is very difficult to restore them.”
American farmers rely on exporting their products because for many products, such as corn, the country produces more than they can consume. Foreign buyers are also more willing to buy agricultural products that people do not want in the United States, such as chicken feet or cow tongues.
But these foreign markets are now a question, as Trump threatens to raise the size of the definitions that are shipped on the products that are shipped to the United States – a step that already caused revenge on other countries with its definitions on American goods.
“This has always been the case, and this is the case this time on doping,” said Chuck Conner, head of the National Farmers Council.
Farmers say they already see the effects after Trump put an additional 20 % tariff on Chinese imports, after which China responded by 10 % to 15 % on American agricultural products, including pork, wheat and corn.
After Trump briefly laid a 25 % tariff on all imports from Canada last month, livestock farmers in the state of Maine received notifications that their grain prices would increase by 15 %, and Sarah Alexander, Executive Director of the Farmers and Grugens Association in Main, said. Trump later marked some definitions, but he also warned that more would come. One of the farmers also told Alexander that his prices for a greenhouse shot this week After Trump put a 25 % tariff on all steel and aluminum imports.
Alexander said: “Consumers will see these effects if the farmer cannot continue their plans or significantly increase their costs, whether in the products already available this year or that the cost must rise because farmers cannot afford all these changes themselves.”
Definition strikes amid issues with federal aid
Federal financing and freezing discounts, along with the lack of employment in the Ministry of Agriculture, were wandering in the American agriculture industry. Farmers say they depend on grants and loans provided by the Ministry of Agriculture to help make their products more expensive for consumers in the United States and overcome natural fluctuations in the market for agricultural commodities.
While Gilkerson tries to discover a new market for its dried bluish fruits, another group of Western Virginia farmers has been arrested in financing discounts for a separate program of agriculture to help boost local foods.
A group of farmers was working to launch a brand of West Virginia products called Appalachian Cellar. After months of work, they were preparing to start distributing the brand to grocery stores and other food distributors when the Ministry of Agriculture told them to finance them had been cut from January 19, the day that Trump had already entered his post.
“I have 31 angry farmers,” said Spencer Moss, CEO of the Food and Agriculture coalition in Virginia, who was working to launch the product line. “We move the corner to the agricultural season, and we are supposed to deal, but we are not. We are unable to increase.”
Mousse said that the group will not only get funding to move in the expenses that appeared on it, but it is not clear whether it will be compensated, as planned, with $ 100,000 in the expenses related to the grant that it already paid.
This is the rural economy of America. She said that the Western State of Virginia is a fully rural country, and therefore the development of this agricultural economy in the state is very important. These are drivers who keep rural societies alive. Therefore, it seems to be withdrawn in rural societies in all fields. “
Seth Kruk, a pulp farmer in Maine, said he received a $ 50,000 grant to deploy 200,000 cubes of mulch on cranberries to help improve its crops. He has the truck, fuel and workforce lining up to spread the mulch and must start in the coming weeks with the start of the agricultural season.
But it is not sure whether it will be actually compensated by the Ministry of Agriculture, because it teaches many other farmers who are still waiting for money for the equipment they bought under the granting of the Agriculture Department.
“I have already sent the cold between many farmers,” said Kruk. “You can sign a contract with the US Department of Agriculture, and expect to pay it. You will never expect that they will not come to the end of the deal. It makes me feel anxious in a broader sense about where we go. A lot of what we do with each other depends on that basic confidence, and that this is very worrying.”
There is uncertainty as farmers try to make decisions at the beginning of the agricultural season in many parts of the country.
In Virginia, John Boyd is not sure whether his loan from the Ministry of Agriculture will come in time for him to buy the seeds he needs to start planting his crops soybeans for this year. Bayde usually gets a loan of the spring transplant to help cover some of the cost of agriculture so that he can harvest crops in the fall and use returns to pay the loan.
But until now, the loan funds have not reached, and he was unable to obtain any update from the Agriculture Department about Whether it is or when it will be available. With only days until he needs to start putting his seeds on the ground, Boyd He said, he is urgently trying to negotiate a payment plan with his seed resource or find another way to finance expenses.
“It is a season of cultivation, and there is a cloud of uncertainty between the agricultural industry with this president,” said Boyd, head of the National Association of Black Farmers. “I have real debts. I have real expenses. But I also have the will to cultivate in some way. I can’t tell you how, but I make calls and try to put some things in place to overcome this crisis that we have put in place.”
Soybeans, which have already decreased amid an abundance of supply in the market as production increased worldwide in recent years, worried that it would decrease in a trade war with China.
“What raises concern here as a leader in the farm community and the work of civil rights is that the farmer is the first to be affected, and it was the farmer who delivered this president.” “They were all for Trump, and they are the first to be affected.”
Soybeans, such as other agricultural products, including corn, wheat and pork, are not set by individual farmers but by the broader commodity market, which are factors in global supply and demand. If the demand for American agricultural products is a major buyer, such as China, it decreases as a result of tariffs, as well as the price.
“In order to obtain a fair price, you need a good and fixed market, and the president disrupts the market,” said Bouade.
Trump’s commercial wars have passed in 2018 and 2019, when it imposed a tariff on China, which moved with its own definitions of American agricultural products, which led to a decrease in sales. In response, Trump created a program for his first term to compensate some of the affected farmers. The amount of payments paid on the revenues collected by the United States collected from the definitions of Chinese imports.
Trump has not said whether to implement a similar payment plan again. Trade Minister Howard Lootnick said Trump’s moves aim to improve the long -term image of farmers by eventually creating a more stadium abroad.
“He realizes that the best way to get our farmers, educators and fishermen’s products in the rest of the world – they prohibited, India prevents our farmers, and all of these countries prevent our farms – the way they grow is to deliver deals with them to understand the power of the American economy,” Lutnick said in a Bloomberg television interview.
Meanwhile, farmers are trying to know how to pay their current bills and how to reduce costs to reduce their losses.
In the state of Iowa, Heimisath, a board of directors of the National Corn Farmers Association and the President of the Farmers for Free Trade, said he was Prepare for the possibility of losing money on its crops this year if there is no change in politics in the coming months.
“We are used to going up and landing on the market. There is no doubt about it, but we need to search for more markets and build on the markets that we have already.” “In the long run, we must definitely get this determination to stay applicable.”