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PostPosted: 08/09/19 2:30 pm • # 26 
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Seems that not all farmers are buying into this

FARMERS CONFRONT TRUMP'S AGRICULTURE SECRETARY AT FORUM: 'WE ARE NOT STARTING TO DO GREAT AGAIN'

BY DANIEL MORITZ-RABSON

American farmers confronted Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Wednesday, criticizing the administration's trade policy and voicing discontent with the impact of the ongoing trade war with China.

During a forum in Minnesota, representatives from the Minnesota Farmers Union, the Minnesota Corn Growers Association and the American Soybean Association took aim the Trump administration's trade policy, Bloomberg reported.

"We are not starting to do great again," said Brian Thalmann, the president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, referencing statements from President Donald Trump. "We are starting to go down very quickly."

The complaints came after a dramatic escalation in the trade war between the world's two largest economies. Last week, Trump threatened to slap tariffs on $300 billion more Chinese imports. China, which in 2017 imported $19.5 billion in U.S. farm goods, said in response it would halt all imports of U.S. agricultural goods.

The move provoked dissent from farmers, who have already been hit hard by the ongoing trade war with China. Beijing has levied tariffs on a range of agricultural products and last year, Chinese businesses bought just $9.1 billion in farm goods from the U.S.

The Trump administration has depicted its trade war with China as a necessary burden to renegotiate a lopsided relationship that damages the U.S. Trump has focused complaints on the vast trade deficit, in which the U.S. imports hundreds of billions of dollars more goods than it exports to Beijing, and China's intellectual property policies, which he has called theft.

Despite the strong economic toll of the trade war on farmers, the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture's most recent producer survey found that 78 percent of farmers said they think the China trade dispute will ultimately be resolved in a way that benefits U.S. agriculture. The high support represented a 9 percentage point increase from June sentiment.

Still, not all farmers are enthused with the trade war and disruption to their supply chains. The Illinois Farm Bureau has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration's attempts to renegotiate trade relations and said it is concerned about the long-term damage that Trump is having on established relations with trade partners.

Trump has sought to mitigate the damage from the trade war by offering bailouts worth $16 billion this year and $12 billion in 2018 to farmers. He hinted on Tuesday that he could authorize another bailout payment in the future.

A July report from the Environmental Working Group showed that the initial $12 billion payment mostly large farmers, with the top one-tenth of recipients getting 54 percent of all the payments.

https://www.newsweek.com/farmers-confro ... fs-1453246


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PostPosted: 08/09/19 6:06 pm • # 27 
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I guess the farmers will continue to love him as long as they continue to get paid for doing nothing.


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PostPosted: 08/09/19 7:50 pm • # 28 
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jimwilliam wrote:
I guess the farmers will continue to love him as long as they continue to get paid for doing nothing.

At least the one's who are getting paidL

Quote:
A July report from the Environmental Working Group showed that the initial $12 billion payment mostly large farmers, with the top one-tenth of recipients getting 54 percent of all the payments.


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PostPosted: 08/10/19 12:28 pm • # 29 
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That still leaves 6 billion (8 billion this year) to be spread among a limited number of farmers not to mention they can turn to other crops. The thing to remember is this will be like the corn subsidies. Once it's started it ain't going away no matter what happens. Why would these farmers want normalized relations with China when they get all this never ending free money? "Grabem! Grabem! He's our man! If anyone can keep us in new pick-up trucks, he can!"


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PostPosted: 08/13/19 8:27 am • # 30 
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Farmers are learning that the Trump administration doesn't give a damn about them.

Farmers Hit Back as USDA Chief Sonny Perdue Mocks Those Harmed by Trump Trade War as 'Whiners'
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/13/farmers-hit-back-usda-chief-sonny-perdue-mocks-those-harmed-trump-trade-war-whiners


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PostPosted: 08/13/19 11:12 am • # 31 
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And yet, according to other stories this week, almost 80 percent of farmers still support the old pervert - maybe not around their daughters but definitely with their livlihoods.


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PostPosted: 08/13/19 12:46 pm • # 32 
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Once in the cult, always in the cult, even to to the point of losing your family farm due to bankruptcy.


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PostPosted: 08/16/19 5:18 am • # 33 
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jabra2 wrote:
Once in the cult, always in the cult, even to to the point of losing your family farm due to bankruptcy.

https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrat ... live_video


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PostPosted: 08/16/19 1:39 pm • # 34 
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The amazing thing is that neither of the farmers interviewed thought China would retaliate to Trump's imposition of tariffs. In the beginning they were probably all standing around in their MAGA hats, scratching their nether regions, hawking greenies into the hay and grunting, "yeah, that'll show the little yellow bastards."
Now they've discovered MAGA means "Make America Grovel Again" they still support him.


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PostPosted: 08/19/19 6:07 am • # 35 
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Trump Trade Adviser Claims China Tariffs 'Not Hurting Anybody' In U.S.
Peter Navarro's assertion came just days after the administration announced that it would delay its latest round of tariffs to avoid impacting holiday shoppers.

By Amy Russo

Quote:
State of the Union
@CNNSotu

White House Trade Adviser Peter Navarro says the US tariffs on China are “not hurting anybody here” in the United States, despite studies suggesting otherwise. #CNNSOTU

vid at source

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro repeatedly claimed on Sunday that Americans are not bearing the brunt of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on China, despite findings by economists that they are essentially a tax on U.S. producers and consumers.

“They’re not hurting anybody here. They’re hurting China,” Navarro told Jake Tapper during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Defending his assertion, he said, “You put on 10% tariffs on $200 billion, and China devalues its currency by 12%. Are consumers bearing anything on that? No. We have seen absolutely no evidence in the price data. It’s not showing up in the consumer price index.”

While Navarro is correct in stating that competitive devaluation could neutralize the impact of tariffs, thus steadying prices, an escalating trade war could spell trouble for American buyers.

In May, researchers from the International Monetary Fund, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Harvard University and the University of Chicago released a study stating that the burden of the tariffs ultimately falls “largely on the U.S.,” a conclusion with which the White House seems to have tacitly agreed.

Last week, the Trump administration announced that it would delay hitting an additional $300 billion in Chinese goods with 10% tariffs, pushing the effective date from Sept. 1 to Dec. 15. In an interview with Fox News, Navarro called it a “Christmas present to the nation.”

However, on Sunday, he downplayed the move, calling it “a goodwill gesture that the president made to the Chinese which protects consumers from any possible Christmas or Hannukah impacts,” again emphasizing that U.S. shoppers aren’t shouldering the consequences right now.

Though Navarro kept the focus on current prices, the administration’s branding of the delay as a “Christmas gift” represents a slight change in its messaging on tariffs, which the president previously and erroneously claimed would be paid by China while strengthening the U.S. and reducing its trade deficit.

A separate IMF analysis of the May study said that while consumers in both China and the U.S. “are unequivocally the losers from trade tensions, ... tariff revenue collected has been borne almost entirely by U.S. importers.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/tru ... 875f258878

live links at source


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PostPosted: 10/07/19 5:24 pm • # 36 
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China trade war triggers closings, layoffs at US hardwood lumber mills
Diana Olick

China used to account for about half of all U.S. hardwood lumber exports, about $2 billion annually. The Trump administration’s 25% tariff cut that demand.

In the 12 months since tariffs on U.S. hardwood were announced in July of last year, lumber exports to China were down by $615 million compared with the previous year, according to the American Hardwood Export Council.

In June of this year alone, when the full tariff rate went into effect, trade volume to China was half what it was a year ago.


It is hard times for the U.S. hardwood lumber industry. The trade war with China has caused a steep drop in U.S. exports of the product, and now the industry is cutting jobs.

China used to account for about half of all U.S. hardwood lumber exports, about $2 billion annually. The Trump administration’s 25% tariff cut through that demand.

In the 12 months since tariffs on U.S. hardwood were announced in July of last year, lumber exports to China were down $615 million compared with the previous year, according to the American Hardwood Export Council. In June of this year alone, when the full tariff rate went into effect, trade volume to China was half what it was a year ago.

“The American hardwood industry is facing a watershed moment in China. As political and commercial ties between our two countries continue to deteriorate, our industry is caught in the middle of a fight with a country who has been our largest market for a decade,” wrote Tripp Pryor, international program manager at the council, in an August report. “The real long-term danger here is that we are losing market share that will not easily be won back.”

Hardwood is used for things like flooring, furniture, cabinets and doors, while softwood is used in framing and other building materials.

Workers at Northwest Hardwoods’ mill in Mount Vernon, Washington, don’t have much time left on the job. The mill is set to be shuttered in November, and all 70 jobs gone. The Tacoma, Washington-based company, which is one of the largest producers in North America, is also closing a plant in Virginia, cutting an additional 30 jobs, and is then laying off 30 more at the corporate level.

China was its No. 1 export customer. Northwest Hardwoods’ CEO said the tariffs were just too much too fast.

“We saw an immediate response from Chinese buyers,” said CEO Nathan Jeppson. “Our business, much like the rest of the industry, is highly dependent and has forged a large relationship selling into the Chinese market, and since the middle of last year, if you just look at year on year, sales are off 43% in total exports to China.”

Jeppson attended the National Hardwood Lumber Association Conference in New Orleans this week, where there was plenty of tariff talk.

“This is a pretty depressed group. This is a pretty challenged industry. We’ve survived a lot of things and a lot of downturns and shown resilience,” he said. “I’m confident that we’ll do so again, but right now this is as scary as it’s ever been for some who’ve been in this industry for their entire careers and often in multigenerational families.”

While his company has a large enough footprint to survive, he says it may end up smaller on the other side of this downturn. Other single-mill operations, largely family owned, will close their doors permanently.

Ironically, China actually saved the American red oak business in recent years. As it fell out of fashion in the U.S., the industry marketed it hard in China, and now it’s the favorite there. Unfortunately the Chinese are now going elsewhere to find it.

“Instead of buying from the U.S., which is the most sustainable forestry institute in the world, they’re buying from places like Russia and Central Africa and Southeast Asia, many of which are known bad actors in terms of illegal harvesting, deforestation and the like,” said Jeppson.

Those countries are now doubling their market share, he added.

“The hardwood lumber industry has received more than $5 million through the USDA’s Agricultural Trade Promotion Program, one leg of the President’s Support Package for Farmers,” a U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesperson said. “However, lumber trade jurisdictionally falls within the Department of Commerce and so the Department of Agriculture is not providing additional assistance beyond trade promotion to the sector.”

The Commerce Department referred requests for comment to the U.S. Trade Representative. The USTR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The White House did not comment.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/04/china-t ... mills.html

Video at source


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PostPosted: 10/09/19 12:58 pm • # 37 
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That's interesting. Apart from early morning when you really have to pee, I didn't know there was any hardwood left in the U.S. All of it seems to come from Malaysia and Africa. There used to be some real good finishing wood stores here but they've all disappeared.


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PostPosted: 12/03/19 9:01 pm • # 38 
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MERRY CHRISTMAS: TRUMP ANNOUNCES TARIFFS THAT WILL SCREW U.S. COMPANIES
“It kinda makes people wonder what’s the point of negotiating if this is going to happen.”

BY BESS LEVIN

Many moons ago, Donald Trump made a bold declaration. Speaking to his Twitter followers, and presumably using both pointer fingers to type, like the Cro-Magnon man he is, the president proclaimed that trade wars are not only “good,” they’re “easy to win.” More than a year and a half later, this prediction has obviously aged extremely poorly. As of September, the trade war with China had reduced U.S. employment by 300,000 jobs, a number that was expected to rise to 450,000 by the end of this year and 900,000 by the end of 2020. As of October, the exercise had cost U.S. corporations $34 billion. Any benefit middle-class households received from the 2017 tax cuts has been offset, with economists predicting tariffs will cost U.S. households $2,000 a pop by 2020. The manufacturing industry is in a recession. Farmers have received more than $28 billion in taxpayer-funded bailouts that hasn’t even stopped the bleeding. The global economy has been pushed to the brink. Lies aside, very little progress on a resolution has been made. In a word, things are going badly. In three words, they’re going flamingly fucking badly.

Most people would examine the consequences of the very good and easy-to-win trade wars and think, Hey, maybe a new approach is in order considering I’ve basically been shooting myself in the foot over and over again. But Donald Trump is not most people, which is why on Monday he chose to escalate matters, slapping tariffs on steel and aluminum from Brazil and Argentina because he’s angry that China has been buying pork, soybeans, and other agricultural products from them as a direct result of his policies and also because he’s convinced himself that they’re devaluating their currencies, thereby making their goods cheaper to purchase abroad, in order to to screw over the U.S.

Quote:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump · Dec 2, 2019

Brazil and Argentina have been presiding over a massive devaluation of their currencies. which is not good for our farmers. Therefore, effective immediately, I will restore the Tariffs on all Steel & Aluminum that is shipped into the U.S. from those countries. The Federal....

Quote:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

.....Reserve should likewise act so that countries, of which there are many, no longer take advantage of our strong dollar by further devaluing their currencies. This makes it very hard for our manufactures & farmers to fairly export their goods. Lower Rates & Loosen - Fed!

And in case there was any worry that this move was at all thought out pre-Tweet, don’t worry, it wasn’t:

Quote:
Trump’s action against Brazil and Argentina took officials in both countries by surprise. Typically, the U.S. provides businesses with some warning of tariff changes, delaying their effective date to allow goods in transit to arrive at American ports without being taxed. But the president tweeted that his tariff order was “effective immediately.” In a sign of how abruptly Trump had acted, his own administration was unprepared to provide details.

As many have pointed out, there’s zero evidence that Brazil or Argentina have been intentionally manipulating their currencies, but reason and logic have no place in the abandoned psychiatric hospital that is Donald Trump’s head. “I gave them a big break on tariffs, but now I’m taking that break off because it’s very unfair to our manufacturers and very unfair to our farmers,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “Our steel companies will be very happy, and our farmers will be very happy.” Like many of his claims, this one is unlikely to actually be true. Per the New York Times:

Quote:
[Steel and aluminum] tariffs have…angered American manufacturers of automobiles, machinery, food packaging and other products, who must pay more for the metal they purchase. The Brazil Steel Institute, which represents the interests of steel exporters, said in a statement that it found the new tariffs “perplexing” and warned that it would harm companies in both countries. “The decision will end up harming the American steel producing companies, which need the semifinished products exported by Brazil to operate its plants,” the institute said.


Quote:
Binyamin Appelbaum
@BCAppelbaum

Brazilian and Argentinian farmers are taking market share from American farmers because of Trump's unsuccessful trade war with China.

So now we're going to impose sanctions on them, too.

And you know who pays for this strategy? Me and you. https://t.co/oVtWpQPTxG

Quote:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

Brazil and Argentina have been presiding over a massive devaluation of their currencies. which is not good for our farmers. Therefore, effective immediately, I will restore the Tariffs on all Steel & Aluminum that is shipped into the U.S. from those countries. The Federal Reserve should likewise act so that countries, of which there are many, no longer take advantage of our strong dollar by further devaluing their currencies. This makes it very hard for our manufactures & farmers to fairly export their goods. Lower Rates & Loosen - Fed!

In addition to costing American companies and consumers, the abrupt imposition of the new tariffs may scare other countries worried about dealing with a capricious reality-TV businessman who seemingly makes major policy decisions based on likes. “It ought to make a whole lot of people nervous,” William Reinsch, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the Washington Post. “It kinda makes people wonder what’s the point of negotiating if this is going to happen.”

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/12 ... il-tariffs


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PostPosted: 12/03/19 9:46 pm • # 39 
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Three things:

1. Trump is going into panic mode. None of his trade deals are working out. He thought he would be able to do his usual thing and bully country's into crawling before him. A king of the world thing. He never expected them to tell him to "f" off and go their own way signing agreements with other countries. He also never took into consideration the reason the U.S. imports all this stuff is because it needs it and has to pay whatever the price is for it. That lands the tariffs squarely on the back of the American consumer.

2. In less than two weeks another $300 billion worth of goods is going to attract tariffs and those tariffs are going to be on the popular electronic goods that people expect to see on sale right after Christmas. Stores stock up for those sales because they are good volume money makers and they start stocking about the time the tariffs take effect. Those sales and the sales from those sales may not be what they usually are and that is going to reflect badly on him.

3. Grabem thought he could put the Chinese on the ropes. They are hurting but it's not because of his tariffs or because of the U.S. market. The Chinese are just waiting him out. What's more they are finding better ways of doing thing. He thought he would screw the Chinese over by denying companies like Huawei American parts and chips. Instead, I read this afternoon that Huawei has released their first phone made entirely of non-American parts.


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PostPosted: 12/03/19 10:01 pm • # 40 
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if he fucks up this trade thing, it is going to kill him politically.

and he probably will, because he is a chronic fuckup.


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PostPosted: 12/05/19 7:31 am • # 41 
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jimwilliam wrote:
That lands the tariffs squarely on the back of the American consumer.

Trump and the Trumpettes still believe that China et al are paying those tariffs.


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PostPosted: 12/05/19 8:08 am • # 42 
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We Are Not Winning the Trade War
By KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON

Image
President Donald Trump speaks about trade at the Granite City Works steel coil warehouse in Granite City, Ill., July 26, 2018.


President Trump proposes to mitigate the effects of his incompetently executed trade war by expanding that trade war.

The problem with winning a race to the bottom is that you end up at the bottom.

President Donald Trump’s idiotically conceived and incompetently executed trade war with China shows no signs of abating — the president himself said this week that he’d be happy to see negotiations drag on throughout the coming year — and now Trump has decided to expand the theater to Brazil and Argentina.

Trump says he is imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum from Brazil and Argentina because those two countries have engaged in a policy of competitive currency devaluation, i.e., they have artificially driven down the value of the real and the peso, respectively, in order to gain an unfair advantage for their exports. Trump charges that this has hurt U.S. farmers and says he is imposing these sanctions on their behalf. The Commerce Department, Treasury, the U.S. Trade Representative, and the governments of Brazil and Argentina learned about this on Twitter in the wee hours, because that is how the Trump administration makes policy.

Like a great deal of what comes out of this White House, the new tariffs and the rationale undergirding them exhibit a very fine blend of dishonesty and stupidity.

It is true that the real and the peso have declined in value of late. But this is not programmatic devaluation; rather, both Brazil and Argentina are in the midst of severe self-imposed crises in their national economies (when are these South American giants not in the midst or on the verge of economic crises?) caused by excessive public debt and misgovernment, afflictions with which the United States is increasingly familiar but as yet resistant to, owing to the sheer size and dynamism of our economy. When a nation’s finances tank, its currency tends to fall in value as investors scurry off rodentially from the keeling schooner that is the ailing nation’s economy. Your people get poorer, and so do your businesses, particularly those with debt denominated in foreign currencies and those that buy a lot of imported goods or inputs. But your exports do get cheaper. That’s the one real upside.


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NR PLUS ECONOMY & BUSINESS
We Are Not Winning the Trade War
By KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON
December 4, 2019 6:30 AM

President Donald Trump speaks about trade at the Granite City Works steel coil warehouse in Granite City, Ill., July 26, 2018. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
President Trump proposes to mitigate the effects of his incompetently executed trade war by expanding that trade war.
The problem with winning a race to the bottom is that you end up at the bottom.

President Donald Trump’s idiotically conceived and incompetently executed trade war with China shows no signs of abating — the president himself said this week that he’d be happy to see negotiations drag on throughout the coming year — and now Trump has decided to expand the theater to Brazil and Argentina.

Trump says he is imposing tariffs on steel and aluminum from Brazil and Argentina because those two countries have engaged in a policy of competitive currency devaluation, i.e., they have artificially driven down the value of the real and the peso, respectively, in order to gain an unfair advantage for their exports. Trump charges that this has hurt U.S. farmers and says he is imposing these sanctions on their behalf. The Commerce Department, Treasury, the U.S. Trade Representative, and the governments of Brazil and Argentina learned about this on Twitter in the wee hours, because that is how the Trump administration makes policy.

Like a great deal of what comes out of this White House, the new tariffs and the rationale undergirding them exhibit a very fine blend of dishonesty and stupidity.

It is true that the real and the peso have declined in value of late. But this is not programmatic devaluation; rather, both Brazil and Argentina are in the midst of severe self-imposed crises in their national economies (when are these South American giants not in the midst or on the verge of economic crises?) caused by excessive public debt and misgovernment, afflictions with which the United States is increasingly familiar but as yet resistant to, owing to the sheer size and dynamism of our economy. When a nation’s finances tank, its currency tends to fall in value as investors scurry off rodentially from the keeling schooner that is the ailing nation’s economy. Your people get poorer, and so do your businesses, particularly those with debt denominated in foreign currencies and those that buy a lot of imported goods or inputs. But your exports do get cheaper. That’s the one real upside.

NOW WATCH: 'Trump to Confront Turkey's President'


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Another way of putting that is that as the economy collapses and the cratering national currency immiserates the people, they become more like the people in poor developing countries who must capitalize on the only asset they have: their poverty. A low standard of living makes labor cheap, and it makes locally produced commodities and finished goods relatively cheap in export markets.

Being poor is the worst kind of competitive advantage to have, and only two kinds of people pursue that advantage as a matter of national policy. The first kind is tyrants, such as the ones in Beijing, who for years artificially lowered the standard of living of the Chinese people on the theory that the Communist bosses could play a long game in which economic development would happen on their terms and under their control, without much real economic power accruing outside of the state. Keeping people unnecessarily poor in order to consolidate the party’s political power and to maintain a firm nationalist whip hand over politically sensitive industries is a monstrous policy but one that has its admirers in managerial nationalists in the United States both left and right.

This policy also appeals to a second kind of people: idiots.

That would be us.

Americans are so selfish that we even envy foreigners their poverty. Americans — President Trump and his advisers are hardly alone in this — look at the situation of Argentina, Brazil, China, India, etc., and say to themselves: “That’s not fair! We need some of that, too!” We believe, without quite putting it that way or understanding what we are advocating, that we would be better off if we were more like the poor, low-wage, backward countries with troubled currencies. And so President Trump has taken a break from labeling other countries’ “currency manipulators” to demand that the Federal Reserve engage in a new policy of more robust currency manipulation. Fed chairman Jerome Powell, to his credit, so far has refused to comply. Devaluing the U.S. dollar would make American consumers and businesses poorer. It would be equivalent to a tax on savings far hungrier than the one Elizabeth Warren contemplates. It would ruin businesses that import components and raw materials: We already have seen this ironically manifested in the ruination of a few domestic steel businesses by the Trump administration’s tax on imported steel, which was enacted without anybody apparently giving a second’s thought to the fact that many U.S. steel companies make a lot of their money processing imported scrap. The tariffs are a tax on one class of goods; devaluing the dollar is a tax on everything, especially on savings and investment.

Our friend Larry Kudlow is a partisan of “King Dollar.” The guy he works for advocates regicide.

What’s particularly idiotic and dishonest here is that none of this was necessary, and none of it has anything to do with monetary policy in Argentina or Brazil. U.S. farmers have lost market share to the South Americans not because of crafty decisions made in Buenos Aires or Brasilia but because of dumb ones made in Washington by the Trump administration, i.e., by the same cabal of backward, slavering incompetents who now are rolling out this new policy.

How?

When the Trump administration enacted tariffs on China, Beijing enacted retaliatory tariffs, some of which targeted American soybean farmers. The Chinese import a lot of U.S.-grown soybeans: The Chinese like pork, and pigs like soybeans. (Most Chinese soy imports are used for animal feed, not tofu.) Soon, U.S. soybean producers, who had spent decades and a considerable amount of money building their Chinese export market, found themselves essentially shut out of China. But the Chinese didn’t stop importing soybeans. They just turned to new producers. As dumb luck would have it — emphasis on the dumb — this trade war coincided with a glut in the worldwide soybean market. When beans are scarce, Northern Hemisphere producers and Southern Hemisphere producers in effect alternate as providers for big export markets. But with lots of beans on the market, and a whole lot more beans in storage, Beijing had the option of simply shutting out U.S. producers with only modest effects on domestic prices. The outbreak of swine fever in China also resulted in the death of 100 million pigs, which took some of the edge off demand.

The American Soybean Association had an office in Beijing for a quarter century before U.S.-grown beans started hitting Chinese feed troughs. Export markets don’t just organize themselves — that enormous and enormously profitable export operation took time and money to build. It took only a few strokes of a politician’s pen to destroy it. The U.S. position in China almost certainly has been permanently diminished — President Trump can sign whatever trade deal he manages to negotiate (bear in mind that the Great Negotiator couldn’t even make a deal on his beloved wall when his own party controlled both houses of Congress), but the damage is done and will not easily be undone. That’s the cost of political incompetence and ignorant adventuring: The productive value of an entire sector of U.S. agribusiness has been permanently diminished because a politician who couldn’t tell a soybean from a hairy coconut let a fit of nationalist pique run away with him — and didn’t have anybody around to tell him: “Hey, dummy — don’t do that.”

Now President Trump proposes to mitigate the effects of his incompetently executed trade war by expanding that incompetently executed trade war. He is trying to cure arsenic poisoning with cyanide.

Who is poorer? American farmers, for one, and others involved in agriculture. (It never seems to occur to anybody that most farmers’ biggest asset, their land, is worth less when its products are cut off from major overseas markets. And the bankers who have accepted that land as collateral have diminished assets, too, as do people invested in those banks, and so on and so forth, throughout the economy in subtle connective tendrils.) If the president is successful in devaluing the dollar, then Americans as a whole will be worse off, too: And if we should happen to devalue our currency to the extent that it falls as fast as the Argentine peso has? Argentina’s inflation rate was above 50 percent in October. Does that sound like the road to victory to you?

But at least we are sticking it to the Chinese, right? Don’t be too sure. Xi Jinping is doing fine, and China’s economy in the third quarter grew at three times the U.S. rate.

Funny kind of “winning” for the Trump administration.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/12/ ... americans/


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PostPosted: 12/10/19 4:33 pm • # 43 
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For those who aren't familiar with the Fraser Institute it's a Canadian right wing think tank.

Trump tariff threat highlights fundamental change in Canada-U.S. relations

Steven Globerman

Another international meeting, this time the recent NATO summit in London, ended with President Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau exhibiting their basic distaste for each other’s governance style and personality (in case you missed it, Trudeau was caught mocking Trump, Trump responded by calling Trudeau “two-faced”).

The ostensible focus of the contretemps was Trump’s public questioning of Canada’s expenditure commitment to NATO. When pressed by the president, the prime minister acknowledged that Canada spends about 1.4 per cent of GDP on defence, not the 2 per cent NATO guideline. Perhaps reacting as much to a perceived personal insult as to Canada’s failure to meet this spending target, upon his return to Washington, Trump mentioned said the United States might take trade actions against countries (including Canada) that fail to put up their money for NATO expenditures.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland played down the latest mudslinging between the two leaders, and Trump’s latest tariff threat, as simply part of the “difficult conversations” that go on between Canadian and U.S. government officials. However, this is an overly sanguine interpretation of President Trump’s latest salvo against Canadian government policies and misleads Canadians about the strength of the commitment of both major U.S. political parties to reduce what’s perceived to be “free-riding” by other countries at the expense of U.S. workers, companies and taxpayers.

Indeed, while Canada’s defence spending is the latest focus of the U.S. administration’s ire, the broader and longer-standing bilateral issue is President Trump’s perception, increasingly shared by both Democrat and Republican leaders, that allies such as Canada are acting opportunistically in a number of policy areas.

For example, during trade negotiations for the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Trump and his trade negotiators especially targeted Canada’s agricultural supply management system and pharmaceutical price regulations. These specific issues have diminished as points of bilateral conflict with the conclusion of USMCA negotiations, but they are unlikely to disappear. Furthermore, with the growing economic importance of entertainment programming and health care, among other service activities, one can anticipate future bilateral disputes about Canada’s cultural regulations and our restrictions on foreign ownership in broadcasting and health-care delivery.

Across a range of economic sectors—again, including entertainment, health care and communications—Canada has relied on exemptions under the WTO, which allow governments to protect domestic sources of supply in the interests of national security and public health and safety.

That the Trump administration has repeatedly invoked national security as a rationale for both imposing and threatening tariffs on its allies, including Canada, is therefore a small irony that underscores the fragility of the very international trade regime that has provided Canada scope to carve out protection for domestic producers in politically-favoured industries.

Unfortunately, the WTO is in a parlous state, in large measure because U.S. officials have come to view the WTO’s rules as disproportionately advantaging other countries, primarily but not exclusively China. The resistance of the Trump administration to approve the appointment of judges to the WTO’s trade court in Geneva will undermine the ability of the WTO to place sensible limits on national governments to restrict trade and investment flows on grounds of national security and public health and safety.

In a global economy increasingly governed by economic and military power rather than by negotiated rules, the Canadian government will confront increasingly difficult tradeoffs.

Whatever the domestic political benefits Canadian politicians anticipate from restraining the growth of defence spending, holding down drug prices, protecting domestic dairy farmers, broadcasters and producers of entertainment content, there are also likely to be increasingly adverse economic consequences associated with the more limited access that competitive Canadian companies will have to Canada’s largest export market due to U.S. trade actions, which may be beyond legal challenge.

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/t ... -relations


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PostPosted: 01/04/20 11:48 am • # 44 
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Predictable

U.S. farmers see another bleak year despite Phase 1 trade deal

Karl Plume, P.J. Huffstutter

Across snow-covered North Dakota, U.S. farmers are stuck with fields full of weather-damaged corn - a crop they planted after the U.S.-China trade war killed their soybean market. Many don’t know yet what crops they’ll plant next season among a host of dicey options.

Frozen corn is seen on a farm near East Grand Forks, Minnesota, U.S., November 22, 2019. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi
In Texas, Kansas and Colorado, farmers are weighing whether they should plant fewer acres of corn and more sorghum, even though China has all but stopped buying it. That’s because sorghum costs about half as much as corn to plant, which appeals to farmers wary of investing too much for an uncertain return.

As the U.S. farm economy reels from the worst harvest in decades after nearly two years of the trade war, U.S. grain growers are struggling to decide what crops might keep them in business.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced last month that China had agreed to double its pre-trade war purchases of U.S. agricultural products over the next two years as part of a Phase 1 trade deal. That brought little comfort to U.S. farmers because China still has not confirmed the commitment or signed any deal.

“President Trump said that we’re all going to need to go buy bigger tractors,” said North Dakota farmer Justin Sherlock. “I don’t think many farmers are going to invest much money until we see that this is a done deal and a long-term deal.”

Trump administration officials say the Phase 1 trade deal with China will be signed in January, though many tariffs will remain in place during further negotiation. Commodity market analysts and agricultural economists warn an agreement won’t be an immediate fix for the U.S. farm economy because the conflict has spurred China to develop new supply chains.

China has, for instance, deepened ties with rival exporters such as Brazil and Argentina. Brazilian soy cultivation is expanding after record exports to China in the past year and China is investing in South American ports.

Making matters worse, China’s need for soy and sorghum to feed livestock is waning because of a deadly pig disease that experts estimate has killed off about half the world’s largest hog herd. China’s hog industry has also worked to reformulate pig rations to include less soy and more alternative feeds that don’t have to be imported from the United States.

“We won’t go immediately back to where we were 18 months ago - maybe not for a long time,” Jay Debertin, chief executive officer of CHS Inc, the largest U.S. farmer cooperative, told grain producers at a recent conference in North Dakota.

U.S. farm exports to China dry up in trade war
Exports of U.S. farm commodities to China tumbled to multi-year lows after China imposed steep tariffs on key products last year amid a deepening trade war. A Phase 1 trade deal to be signed next month is expected to send exports to record highs when it is implemented.

Image

‘WE’RE DONE’ WITHOUT MORE TRADE AID

Many U.S. farmers have tried shifting crops to dodge the economic fallout from losing such a crucial export market. They planted 76.5 million acres of soybeans in 2019, 14.3% fewer than the previous year, according to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture data. U.S. plantings of sorghum - used in livestock feed and the fiery Chinese liquor baijiu - dipped about 7.5% in 2019, to 5.3 million acres. Plantings of cotton have dropped, too, as China pulled back on purchases.

Plantings of such China-dependent crops likely would have fallen much further were it not for the Trump administration’s allocation of $24.5 billion in aid to compensate farmers for trade-war losses. The bailouts gave many farmers an incentive to keep planting crops such as soybeans that they knew would be difficult to sell at any profitable price. Government handouts are expected to account for nearly a third of 2019 net farm income, according to federal government and bank regulatory data.

Trump administration officials have not said if farmers will get more payments in 2020. Robert Johansson, chief economist at USDA, told Reuters he expected the interim trade deal would solve the issues that the aid program had addressed.

USDA Deputy Press Secretary Alec Varsamis said the agency would decide in January on future payments. White House spokesman Judd Deere declined to comment and referred to previous statements by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who has said China committed to “massive” U.S. agriculture purchases.

Farmers in export-dependent regions say they can’t continue to sell their crops for below the cost of production without a third round of subsidies to cover the losses.

“If the government doesn’t pay us, we’re done,” said Sherlock, who did not vote for Trump in 2016 and remains undecided for 2020.

Most farmers have backed the president as he seeks re-election, according to polls by Reuters and farm media outlets. In 2016, they were drawn to Trump’s promise to shake up Washington bureaucracy and hoped the trade war, although it might bring short-term losses, would eventually improve the size and scope of China’s U.S. agricultural purchases.

Slideshow (15 Images) at source

DAMAGED CORN

Farmers last season intended to use more of their land for corn – a crop aimed at markets outside China - but that backfired for many growers when extreme weather prevented planting on millions of acres. Early seed orders for 2020 suggest farmers will again turn to corn to replace soybeans, China’s largest agricultural import. Scott Beck - president of Beck’s Hybrids, the largest family-owned U.S. retail seed company - told Reuters that sales of corn seed for 2020 planting are already up about 40% from 2019.

Sherlock and many of his neighbors last spring sowed one of North Dakota’s largest-ever corn crops by acreage. They were enticed by rising springtime prices and the promise of trade aid as long as they planted something. They figured their corn would find buyers among domestic livestock or ethanol producers or in established export markets such as Japan, South Korea or Mexico. But bad weather left almost 60% of the state’s corn - about 2 million acres - unfit for harvest at winter’s onset, according to USDA.

Many growers are caught in limbo. Their fields are not bad enough to trigger crop insurance payouts but not good enough to recoup costs. And trade-aid payments for North Dakota are not robust enough to cover losses, with larger per-acre aid payments flowing to southern states.

Sherlock says he might contract to grow more soybeans for a local seed company, a niche crop that costs more to grow but could reap higher prices. Field peas, used in grain-free pet foods, are another option.

Iowa corn and soybean farmer Mitchell Hora is also seeking alternatives. He sowed winter wheat and rye in fall of 2018 and sold the cleaned seed to fellow producers, and has more recently contracted to sell rye to a start-up malting company.

“The agricultural system is completely broken” because of the trade war, severe weather and mounting farm debt, Hora said. “We have to farm smarter.”

BEST OF BAD OPTIONS

Farmers in the High Plains of Texas, the second-largest sorghum-producing state, also face hard choices. China’s imports of U.S. sorghum in 2019 were less than one-tenth of the volume purchased four years earlier, according to the most recent government data.

Still, the production cost for an acre of sorghum in this heavily irrigated region will be about half the cost of planting corn, according to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension data. Farmer Robert Boozer of Dimmitt, Texas – who grows cotton, corn and sorghum – said he and his neighbors pray for a time when the trade war no longer factors into planting decisions.

He’s agonizing over the per-acre costs of different crops and the break-even selling prices he’ll need to stay afloat. For now, he’ll plant more sorghum - “the best option in a field of terrible options.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... SKBN1Z20CK


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PostPosted: 01/04/20 12:00 pm • # 45 
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Quote:
“We have to farm smarter.”


Try voting smarter.


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PostPosted: 01/04/20 12:28 pm • # 46 
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oskar576 wrote:
Quote:
“We have to farm smarter.”


Try voting smarter.

:st :st :st

Sooz


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PostPosted: 01/06/20 12:27 pm • # 47 
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Borden Becomes Second Big U.S. Milk Producer to File for Bankruptcy

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/borde ... 04420.html


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PostPosted: 01/10/20 1:19 pm • # 48 
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Boeing's biggest supplier lays off 2,800 workers because of 737 Max production suspension

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/10/business ... Stories%29


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PostPosted: 01/10/20 3:25 pm • # 49 
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I don't think you can hang the last two on Grabem, Oscar. Like buggy whip makers of yore, Borden's is the victims of a changing market and Boeing is the author of it's own misfortune.


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PostPosted: 01/10/20 3:30 pm • # 50 
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jimwilliam wrote:
I don't think you can hang the last two on Grabem, Oscar. Like buggy whip makers of yore, Borden's is the victims of a changing market and Boeing is the author of it's own misfortune.

Fully in agreement.


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