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The 2018 farm bill was defeated with a vote of 213-198, with all House Democrats and 30 House Freedom Caucus Republicans voting against it. The first farm bill was passed in 1933, and since then, farm bills have generally had bipartisan support. But with the polarities that currently exist both within and between parties, it should not be a shock that this farm bill didn’t pass. If even a bill that has traditionally enjoyed the backing of both parties can fail, we could look at the 2018 farm bill as reminder of just how politically divided we are today.

Most Republicans urged a vote on the passage of immigration policy before voting on the 2018 farm bill, however. The farm bill became a bargaining chip as Republicans worked to get support for a stringent immigration bill, The Goodlatte-McCaul bill. Goodlatte-McCaul cracks down on sanctuary cities, authorizes the building of a border wall, provides temporary three-year guest work permits without a path to citizenship and allows for negotiation with Trump on the fate of the DACA recipients.

The current farm bill expires on September 30, so there is still time to draft and vote on a satisfactory replacement. But putting off a vote for the farm bill in order to address stricter immigration policy is likely to result in the stalling of satisfactory decisions on both issues.

Traditionally, farm bills have been designed to support both very urban and very rural districts. They have done so by providing subsidies for farmers, and subsidized food programs in the form of either SNAP (food stamps) or subsidized school breakfasts and lunches for those living in poverty. For the past 50 years, farm bills have changed very little.

The 2018 farm bill, however, contains changes food stamp eligibility that Democrats see as too harsh, and that Freedom Caucus members see as not going far enough. Food stamp changes would require adults to work 20 hours a week or participate in a state-run training program in order to be eligible for benefits. Democrats fear that at least a million people could lose benefits under these guidelines, since most states don’t have the resources to establish and maintain such training programs.

Meanwhile, farmers and those who need food assistance wait uneasily for the outcome. With the wide ideological gaps that exist among the GOP members themselves, however, it doesn’t seem likely that any farm bill could ever make it through a House vote.

30 House Republicans join Democrats to defeat farm bill | Fox News [2018-05-19]

Farm Bill Fails In The House | CNBC [2018-05-18]

World leaders are responding with shock and disappointment at President Trump’s announcement that the U.S. was pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal (the JCPoA, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). Trump stated that he would restore the pre-JCPoA “highest level of sanctions” on Iran.

In 2015, under the JCPoA, Iran entered into an agreement with the U.S., the U.K., Russia, Germany, France, and China, to significantly reduce its stores of nuclear weapon components. These included enriched uranium, centrifuges, and heavy water. Iran had agreed to the JCPoA because the U.S., the U.N., and the E.U. had frozen billions of pounds in Iranian overseas assets, and imposed harsh sanctions that were estimated to cost Iran tens of billions of pounds per year in lost export oil revenue.

Claiming that there would be a nuclear arms race in the Middle East if he allowed the JCPoA to stand, Trump also said that the U.S. “will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail.”

According to journalist Christiane Amanpour, however, “nuclear blackmail” is exactly what Trump’s withdrawal from the JCPoA has opened the U.S. to.

“Remember that it was George W Bush…who decided to ditch the Clinton Administration’s deal with North Korea in the early 2000s. What did that do? They pulled out of the NP T (Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty), they kicked out the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors, and now they are conducting nuclear blackmail, because they actually do have nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles. That is a possibility, going forward. That is what the president has opened the door to.”

To Trump’s proclamation of “We will not allow American cities to be threatened,” Amanpour points out that “It’s not Iran’s missile program, it’s North Korea’s missile program” that threatens American cities.

“This is exactly why North Korea is where it is today because of the same kind of hardball negotiating tactics that a U.S. president thought would be a success.”

France, Germany, and Britain urged Trump not to pull out of the agreement, and say that they will continue to keep their commitment to the JCPoA. Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, threatened that Iran may begin to enrich more uranium than ever if other countries participating in the JCPoA failed to negotiate with Iran.

Perhaps Trump’s description of the Iran nuclear deal as “decaying and rotting,” and the “worst deal the U.S. has ever signed,” provides the most insight into what motivated him to pull out of it: The JCPoA was put in place by the Obama administration. Perhaps even more important to Trump than “keeping America safe” is achieving his apparent goal to obliterate any and all Obama-era policies, and the JCPoA was, in fact, Obama’s most significant foreign policy achievement.

Amanpour: How does pulling out of Iran deal make US safe? | CNN [2018-05-08]

Obama rips Trump decision to leave Iran deal | Fox News [2018-05-08]

Category: *Fox News (banned)

Historically Uncontroversial, But in 2018, Farm Bill Fails

Trump Withdraws from Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPoA)