Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a hundred-millionaire, needs America’s farmers to know he’s similar to them and they’re all on this collectively.
American soybean farmers have had a tough go of it currently, with China boycotting the acquisition of U.S. soybeans. By no means worry, although. Bessent is aware of precisely what you’re going by.
That is nonsense on so many ranges.
First, Forbes estimates Bessent’s web value to be about $600 million, so he in all probability is feeling no ache. In distinction, those that run small farms usually should work aspect gigs to make ends meet, and over three-quarters of whole farm family earnings is from off-farm jobs. After accounting for all the prices that go into farming, small household farms make about $44,000 per yr on common.
Subsequent, Bessent doesn’t farm a factor. As a substitute, he owns substantial farmland in North Dakota, which he rents out. The land is value as much as $25 million, and the rental earnings pulls in between $100,000 and $1 million per yr for him.
In different phrases, he’s a landlord.
A farmer drives a mix down a row of soybeans in Indiana, in 2019.
You’re in all probability questioning how Bessent was allowed to maintain his farm after beginning work within the Trump administration, and also you’re not alone. Bessent has been allowed to maintain a few of his personal holdings, together with that farmland. Bessent was speculated to divest of sure holdings inside 90 days of being confirmed, However, in a neat trick, Bessent has averted it, promising now that he’ll comply by Dec. 15.
Properly, apart from the issues Bessent has unilaterally determined he won’t divest from. That features a personal fairness fund and his investments in a drug growth firm and a flavored water firm. In response to Bessent, it’s simply too troublesome to see them, and the federal government ethics workplace simply did him a strong and mentioned these magically don’t pose any conflicts of curiosity.
Bessent hasn’t bought his farmland, both. In concept, he’s required to promote that by Dec. 15, however earlier than he does that—if he does it in any respect—he’s going to do a wee little bit of Trump-style grifting. See, because the treasury secretary, he’s negotiating a soybean take care of China, which stands to complement Bessent, the faux-farmer. Neat.
However he’s not on this for the cash, nosiree. “The honor of serving the American people under President Trump can’t be ascribed a dollar value,” he informed The New York Occasions.
Certain.
Bessent’s try to indicate he’s in contact with the wants of the frequent man, the workaday farmer struggling to make ends meet, is ridiculous. The one a part of farming he engages in is counting his scrumptious passive earnings whereas different individuals do the work.
