*Lies – Page 28 – * Failed Pols

American farmers will be the real victims of the Trump administration’s recent tariffs on certain imports. Trump has placed a 25-percent tariff on steel and a 10-percent tariff on aluminum imported from China, Canada, Mexico, and the EU, and an additional 25-percent tariff on a number of other Chinese imports. Those countries are retaliating by placing tariffs on certain American farm products.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said that the tariffs “are a firm statement that other nations cannot bully our agricultural producers to force the United States to cave in.”

Continuing with the irony, Trump said, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, that farmers “will be the biggest beneficiary.”

It’s not clear what Trump meant by “beneficiary.” A variety of farmers will suffer as an indirect result of Trump’s tariffs. Farmers who will feel the most pain are growers of soybeans, but those who raise cotton, wheat, sorghum, cattle, hogs, legumes, nuts, and fruits, have been targeted, as well. Some of the hardest-hit farmers are in those states that supported Trump.

Now the Trump administration plans to come to the “rescue” of American farmers by offering them roughly $12 billion in government assistance. So after severely harming their livelihood, the Trump administration offers farmers relief from its own trade policy.

But the aid is not likely to be enough to fully replace the revenue lost. The damage done by the tariffs will be long-term, and won’t be repaired by a one-time or short-term patch. Smaller farmers are likely to go out of business as a result of their losses. What’s more, farmers want to farm, participate in the global economy, and contribute to the world’s food supply. Most significantly, it doesn’t make sense to attempt to punish other nations (including some of our allies) by ultimately hurting one’s own people, and then implementing a costly system to “help” them.

Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) stated it well: “You have a terrible policy (of tariffs) that sends farmers to the poorhouse, and then you put them on welfare, and we borrow the money from other countries. It’s hard to believe there isn’t an outright revolt right now in Congress.”

Does the emergency aid for farmers offer a solution or more problems? | Washington Post [2018-07-24]

Impact of Trump’s tariffs on his GOP base | Fox Business | [2018-07-24]

To say that Donald Trump is the most history-ignorant U.S. president that ever served would be to use superlatives with as much abandon and as little supporting research as does Trump himself. But we do know that in Donald Trump, the U.S. has a president who is grossly uninformed about history. Not only that, he is our president because, in part, the people who elected him “don’t know much about history,” either, and are damned proud of it.

Trump’s supporters seem to see a kind of righteousness in Trump’s (and in their) ignorance of history. Had they understood (or cared about) the importance of having a leader who could navigate treaties and historic global relationships, perhaps Donald Trump would never have stumbled into the Oval Office. It’s an embarrassment that so many citizens of our country have so little knowledge of its past, its place in the world, and its friends and enemies. But the bigger embarrassment by far is that our 45^th president has perhaps even less knowledge, and less desire for knowledge, than his supporters do. It’s more than embarrassing, though – it’s dangerous.

In a recent example, Donald Trump, “leader of the free world,” proved that he barely knows what NATO is, or why it was formed. He insulted member nations (our allies), and in his lack of knowledge of the Obama administration’s 2014 formal agreement already in place with NATO countries, tried to bully them into making greater contributions to its defense fund. At the same time, showing that he was unaware of the real figures, Trump exaggerated the dollar amount of the United States’ contribution. Overall, he likely weakened the U.S. stance with an organization that would help protect U.S. security.

Though the Soviet Union, per se, no longer exists, a former Soviet, Vladimir Putin, president of Russia and adversary of the United States, is alive and well. Putin would like nothing better than to weaken or even dismantle NATO. Trump, however, has demonstrated his apparent ignorance of Putin’s history as well as the history of the American relationship with the former Soviet Union and what is currently Russia, by repeatedly maligning our crucial allies while cozying up to our enemy.

Since Trump’s supporters don’t appear to be familiar with this history, and since they don’t appear to see the importance of understanding this history, it’s no wonder they can continue to make excuses for Trump, even in the face of his astonishing behavior. It’s a threat to our country’s well-being, however, when Trump, a man who ignores history to this extent, is leading us all.

Trump again questions the entire point of NATO | CNN [2018-07-18]

Trump pressures allies to boost NATO defense spending | Fox Business [2018-07-12]

Category: *Lies

Import Tariffs: Farmers Are the Real Victims

Trump’s Ignorance of History