ACT I
President Donald Trump posts on Reality Social in March:
To the Nice Farmers of the USA: Prepare to start out making a number of agricultural product to be offered INSIDE of the USA. Tariffs will go on exterior product on April 2nd. Have enjoyable!
ACT II
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins says in April:
ACT III
Trump says in October:
Trump: “The one value now we have that is excessive is beef, and we’ll get that down. And one of many issues we’re fascinated by doing is beef from Argentina.
Weirdly, American farmers don’t like this play. The individuals who most strongly supported Trump in all three of his elections are actually crying about it.
“NCBA’s family farmers and ranchers have numerous concerns with importing more Argentinian beef to lower prices for consumers. This plan only creates chaos at a critical time of the year for American cattle producers, while doing nothing to lower grocery store prices,” stated Colin Woodall, CEO of the Nationwide Cattlemen’s Beef Affiliation, a strongly pro-Trump group.
“Field of bad dreams” by Tim Campbell
Truly, this self-interested business hack is flawed. Importing Argentinian beef will decrease costs. It’s primary Econ 101: extra provide means decrease costs.
And that’s precisely the issue for America’s farmers—they’re not important. If meals might be produced cheaper elsewhere, we’ll purchase it elsewhere.
For many years, blue America and blue cities in purple states have backed rural America’s inefficiency—funding hospitals, faculties, postal service, broadband, and different infrastructure in locations with extra cows than folks. And for that generosity, we’ve been repaid with resentment, bigotry, division, and the election of the person who embodies all of it.
So to hell with all their treasured subsidies. There’s a sure poetic justice in watching Trump’s most loyal supporters grow to be his newest victims. Simply months after his agriculture secretary promised to guard them from Argentinian beef within the title of “America First,” Trump threw them below the tractor.
That’s the story of Trumpism, actually—betrayal dressed up as populism—as he works to assist his mates (on this case, Argentina’s right-wing president Javier Milei) on the expense of his nation.
Now, the individuals who cheered him the loudest are lastly studying what the remainder of us already knew.
