Peppered with complaints from farmers fed up with President Trump’s trade war, Sonny Perdue found his patience wearing thin. Mr. Perdue, the agriculture secretary and the guest of honor at the annual Farmfest gathering in southern Minnesota this month, tried to break the ice with a joke.
“What do you call two farmers in a basement?” Mr. Perdue asked near the end of a testy hourlong town-hall-style event. “A whine cellar.”
A cascade of boos ricocheted around the room.
American farmers have become collateral damage in a trade war that Mr. Trump began to help manufacturers and other companies that he believes have been hurt by China’s “unfair” trade practices.
More than a year into the trade dispute, sales of American soybeans, pork, wheat and other agricultural products to China have dried up as Beijing retaliates against Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports. Lucrative contracts that farmers long relied on for a significant source of income have evaporated, with Chinese buyers looking to other nations like Brazil and Canada to get the commodities they need. Farm bankruptcy filings in the year through June were up 13 percent from 2018 and loan delinquency rates are on the rise, according to the American Farm Bureau. (...)
Losing the world’s most populous country as an export market has been a major blow to the agriculture industry. Total American agricultural exports to China were $24 billion in 2014 and fell to $9.1 billion last year, according to the American Farm Bureau. Exports of farm products to China fell by $1.3 billion in the first half of the year, the agriculture group said this month.
A report from the Agriculture Department this month found that Canadian wheat exports to China have “rocketed” this year, while exports from the United States have plunged.
The administration has tried to mollify farmers by rolling out two financial aid packages totaling $28 billion. The White House has also dispatched Mr. Perdue, the 72-year-old former governor of Georgia who was raised on a farm and trained as a veterinarian, to places like Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin to calm the nerves of farmers.
But as the trade fight gets uglier, farmers are beginning to panic. Last week, Mr. Trump said he would increase tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports to 30 percent and impose a 15 percent tax on another $300 billion worth later this year. China has already said it will no longer buy American agricultural products and announced on Friday that it would raise tariffs on $75 billion of exports from America. (...)
Mr. Perdue, who was once a Democrat, has also shown a penchant for pleasing conservatives. Last year, he pitched the idea of slashing federal food stamp assistance programs by partially replacing food allowance money for the poor with “harvest boxes” of pasta, cereal and canned goods selected by the government. That plan was eventually scrapped, but Mr. Perdue has continued his push to curtail food stamps this year, including last month when he proposed a rule that would cut three million people off from food stamps by changing the eligibility requirements.
Most recently, Mr. Perdue won plaudits from top White House officials for moving part of his agency out of town. After agency research clashed with the administration’s policy agenda, Mr. Perdue decided last year to relocate two of the department’s scientific divisions — the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture — to the Kansas City region from Washington. Mr. Perdue claimed that the relocation was not retaliatory and was about moving researchers closer to their subjects.
According to the American Federation of Government Employees, only about 100 of the approximately 500 employees from the divisions have agreed to relocate.
When Mr. Perdue addressed employees in June about the move, several stood and turned their backs to him, according to people who were in the room. Democrats have been outraged by the relocation, calling it an attack on science. And the Agriculture Department’s inspector general said in a report released this month that moving the research units without congressional approval might be illegal.
In the West Wing, however, Mr. Perdue’s decision was seen as a stroke of brilliance.
At the South Carolina Republican Party’s Silver Elephant gala in early August, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, hailed Mr. Perdue’s maneuver as a case study of how to “drain the swamp.”
“What do you call two farmers in a basement?” Mr. Perdue asked near the end of a testy hourlong town-hall-style event. “A whine cellar.”
A cascade of boos ricocheted around the room.
American farmers have become collateral damage in a trade war that Mr. Trump began to help manufacturers and other companies that he believes have been hurt by China’s “unfair” trade practices.
More than a year into the trade dispute, sales of American soybeans, pork, wheat and other agricultural products to China have dried up as Beijing retaliates against Mr. Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports. Lucrative contracts that farmers long relied on for a significant source of income have evaporated, with Chinese buyers looking to other nations like Brazil and Canada to get the commodities they need. Farm bankruptcy filings in the year through June were up 13 percent from 2018 and loan delinquency rates are on the rise, according to the American Farm Bureau. (...)Losing the world’s most populous country as an export market has been a major blow to the agriculture industry. Total American agricultural exports to China were $24 billion in 2014 and fell to $9.1 billion last year, according to the American Farm Bureau. Exports of farm products to China fell by $1.3 billion in the first half of the year, the agriculture group said this month.
A report from the Agriculture Department this month found that Canadian wheat exports to China have “rocketed” this year, while exports from the United States have plunged.
The administration has tried to mollify farmers by rolling out two financial aid packages totaling $28 billion. The White House has also dispatched Mr. Perdue, the 72-year-old former governor of Georgia who was raised on a farm and trained as a veterinarian, to places like Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin to calm the nerves of farmers.
But as the trade fight gets uglier, farmers are beginning to panic. Last week, Mr. Trump said he would increase tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports to 30 percent and impose a 15 percent tax on another $300 billion worth later this year. China has already said it will no longer buy American agricultural products and announced on Friday that it would raise tariffs on $75 billion of exports from America. (...)
Mr. Perdue, who was once a Democrat, has also shown a penchant for pleasing conservatives. Last year, he pitched the idea of slashing federal food stamp assistance programs by partially replacing food allowance money for the poor with “harvest boxes” of pasta, cereal and canned goods selected by the government. That plan was eventually scrapped, but Mr. Perdue has continued his push to curtail food stamps this year, including last month when he proposed a rule that would cut three million people off from food stamps by changing the eligibility requirements.
Most recently, Mr. Perdue won plaudits from top White House officials for moving part of his agency out of town. After agency research clashed with the administration’s policy agenda, Mr. Perdue decided last year to relocate two of the department’s scientific divisions — the Economic Research Service and the National Institute of Food and Agriculture — to the Kansas City region from Washington. Mr. Perdue claimed that the relocation was not retaliatory and was about moving researchers closer to their subjects.
According to the American Federation of Government Employees, only about 100 of the approximately 500 employees from the divisions have agreed to relocate.
When Mr. Perdue addressed employees in June about the move, several stood and turned their backs to him, according to people who were in the room. Democrats have been outraged by the relocation, calling it an attack on science. And the Agriculture Department’s inspector general said in a report released this month that moving the research units without congressional approval might be illegal.
In the West Wing, however, Mr. Perdue’s decision was seen as a stroke of brilliance.
At the South Carolina Republican Party’s Silver Elephant gala in early August, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, hailed Mr. Perdue’s maneuver as a case study of how to “drain the swamp.”
by Alan Rappeport, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Melissa Golden for The New York Times
