Your Economy (No Politics)

[arizona1]

'They would've lost them anyway': Trump comforts farmers losing farms due to tariffs
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/9/12/1795317/--They-would-ve-lost-them-anyway-Trump-comforts-farmers-losing-farms-due-to-tariffs?detail=facebook

There's just no words for how incomprehensibly out of touch Donald Trump is with the havoc he and his trade policies are wreaking on farmers. Here's what Trump told a local KELO reporter in South Dakota last week when he was asked for comforting words for those farmers at risk of losing their livelihoods because of Trump's trade war.

Brady Mallory: "So, for family farmers here who are worried about losing their generations-long farms -- at the end of the season --, (and) early retirement, any words of comfort for them now?"

President Donald Trump: "Well, they would've lost them anyway because they were being hurt so badly by the trade barriers. We will tell you they are going to be in a very good position soon."

That's the latest version of "don't blame me for that"—something Trump said last month at a rally where he was grousing about all the soybean talk of late. Surely, South Dakota farmers are soothed by Trump's concern, which came just hours after Trump announced that he might slap tariffs on another $267 billion worth of Chinese goods (on top of a previously promised $200 billion), significantly escalating an already fraught trade dispute with China.

But don't worry, Trump says, they'll be in "a very good position soon" ... after they lose their farms.

What's even more difficult to believe than Trump's callousness about the pain he actually elected to inflict on farm country, is the notion that all's well that ends well appears to be a talking point the White House has embraced on the tariffs. Trump’s sentiment in South Dakota is almost exactly the same as the one Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders advanced in April when she said farmers' "little bit of short-term pain" would all be worth it based on the "long-term success" that would manifest due to Trump's tariffs. They very clearly have zero idea that "long-term" gains mean nothing to people who have already been forced out of business.

Last month, a Nebraska soybean farmer remarked of Trump's tariff policies, "He's gonna kill us."

Not only is Trump gonna kill their family business, he doesn't give a crap.