This is Stupid

American soybean farmers cannot sell their crops. China is the number one buyer and has chosen not to buy. Other countries have also looked elsewhere.

Why?

Tariffs.

It really is that simple. The President of the United States chose to start a trade war, convincing his supporters that other countries were onerously taxing American imports, ignoring the special exemptions made for the United States in many of the laws.

Those other nations have responded by buying elsewhere. China, the largest buyer of American soybeans, has decided to snub our farmers.

So now you and I will pay American farmers for the soybeans they cannot sell because of the President’s trade policy.

“But they’ll use the tariff money,” you say.

Except they cannot under American law. Congress can decide how to spend the tariffs generated. Remember, they were supposed to pay down debt. The President cannot unilaterally spend that money.

The President will instead find money in the Department of Agriculture budget that he can divert from other purposes and give it to the farmers who would prefer to sell the crops they grew, but now cannot because of the President’s stupid tariffs.

Well done, everybody.

The way this will play out is that Trump and Xi will negotiate for China to buy some soybeans. The seal clappers will clap that everyone else was wrong and Trump was right. China will not buy nearly the volume that it bought previously, having already procured soybeans from Argentina, Brazil, and elsewhere. And American taxpayers will bailout the farmers as Trump and his supporters insist China caved and please pay no attention to the bailout.

This is economic policy brought to you by Tylenol-Americans thirty feet over a runway.